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Search Google & YouTube Directly from Spotlight on Your iPhone

Feb 20, 2015 09:33 PM
Feb 20, 2015 10:03 PM
Google search interface on a smartphone with options for web and Wikipedia searches.

Spotlight makes finding apps, contacts, emails, songs, and old messages extremely easy on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. You can even search for Wikipedia articles online, as well as perform general web searches.

The only problem is that Apple kicked Google Search results to the curb in iOS 8 in favor of Bing, and at times, Bing fails to provide YouTube links for relevant search queries. But if you have a jailbroken device, you can add Google Search and YouTube results to any Spotlight search.

Install the Tweaks

To enjoy the glory of Google Search results and YouTube links, you'll need to install the following free tweaks from Cydia.

Search Google & YouTube Directly from Spotlight on Your iPhone
App update screen for Spotlight Google featuring update notes and settings options.
Search Google & YouTube Directly from Spotlight on Your iPhone
App update screen for Spotlight Google featuring update notes and settings options.

Once you've installed both, you'll need to respring your device to enable the tweaks; there are no settings or options to configure.

Use Your Tweaks

With both tweaks installed, you'll have to enter an initial before your search terms to bring up the results you want.

  • G or g for Google
  • Y or y for YouTube
  • B or b for Bing

For example, searching for "Y take me to church" will bring me directly to YouTube in Safari with a list of videos of the popular song from Hozier. From there, you can click on a video link or open the YouTube application on your device.

Search Google & YouTube Directly from Spotlight on Your iPhone
YouTube search results for "Take Me To Church" music video.
Search Google & YouTube Directly from Spotlight on Your iPhone
YouTube search results for "Take Me To Church" music video.

Spotlight Google and SpotBingSearch are two essential tweaks that make using Spotlight search more helpful. I almost always prefer Google's search results to Bing's, and now I can receive them by simply entering a "G" before my search terms.

Want to expand search results on your iOS device even more? Check out In-App Search, an app that searches content inside of third-party apps on your iOS device and lets you open the app directly from the results. It's a nice companion to Spotlight.

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The next big software update for iPhone is coming sometime in April and will include a Food section in Apple News+, an easy-to-miss new Ambient Music app, Priority Notifications thanks to Apple Intelligence, and updates to apps like Mail, Photos, Podcasts, and Safari. See what else is coming to your iPhone with the iOS 18.4 update.

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