Firefox - Get "Highlight all" button to be on by default

I usually have to type Ctrl+F, type the search string, and then Alt+A to toggle "Highlight all", because only one match is highlighted by default. I want the "Highlight all" button to be always on, and I don't think I'll ever need to turn it off.

Currently:

"Highlight all" has to be re-enabled by the user for every page.
"Match case" stays toggled when you switch between pages.

Which is the wrong way around from a usability perspective.

Searching for some time did not yield any good results. This thread http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2077733 addresses the problem, but the solution there (Find Toolbar Tweaks plugin) doesn't work with newer versions of Firefox. The plug-in's page doesn't list any recent updates.

Is there a plug-in or a setting to get this standard behaviour in Firefox? (Chrome, Opera, and even IE all behave sensibly in this regard.)

firefox

Evgeni Sergeev

Posted 2013-09-06T04:11:02.803

Reputation: 1 704

Sadly, Mozilla intentionally does not do this. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=266538

– inanutshellus – 2014-06-23T18:12:57.923

3@Gabriel The argument being that if "Highlight All" is on and a single letter like 'e' is typed, the contract of the functionality is that every letter 'e' on the page will be highlighted as you type, which will cause a major slow-down for large web pages. (This behaviour is highly annoying in Chrome.) The obvious solution there is to make the search-and-highlighting process asynchronous and low-priority, so that it won't block further user actions and will progressively highlight more and more matches, given time. Appropriate feedback that it's not finished yet can be given in the findbar. – Evgeni Sergeev – 2014-06-24T02:37:18.387

1Yes, that insight is also in the Bugzilla ticket and was apparently ignored. – inanutshellus – 2014-06-24T12:33:40.170

2@Gabriel It seems to be ignored because nobody wants to work on it. Probably a tricky thing to implement for what may be seen as a small gain. However, thinking about the number of users of Firefox who all use this feature every day, and remembering all those multi-million dollar scrapped projects with much more impressive functionality, except that they are sort of impressive in a vacuum, having zero users now, I think the utility/effort ratio for this feature is actually quite high. – Evgeni Sergeev – 2014-06-26T23:18:45.763

And the "just always highlight all" https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=342101 feature request in addition to Gabriel's (better) remember highlight all button state request. Let's upvote them!

– Ciro Santilli 新疆改造中心法轮功六四事件 – 2015-03-04T14:10:26.610

Thanks for mentioning the FF Alt+A (CTRL-A on mac) which is enough for me. – Clemens Tolboom – 2016-04-03T08:37:38.990

1Why can't FF just add an about:config option to default Hightlight All on or off! – IanVaughan – 2016-09-13T19:39:48.173

@EvgeniSergeev Please consider accepting the newer answer, since that gives a means to do this in Firefox without having to use an extension. – NextInLine – 2018-09-13T14:06:43.303

Answers

You could try the latest version 1.3.4 of FindBar Tweak. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/findbar-tweak/versions/

The "Highlight All" checkbox can be found in the extension's "Highlight" preferences panel.

gammaburst

Posted 2013-09-06T04:11:02.803

Reputation: 335

How do you get Findbar Tweak to maintain the highlight on page reloads? – Matthew Lock – 2015-08-12T08:07:14.797

Ah it's just buggy! It seems to frequently forget to highlight the word even though it highlights the occurrence in the scrollbar http://i.imgur.com/9SmlYDz.png

– Matthew Lock – 2015-08-12T08:14:21.910

It works. I was already wondering if it's possible to write a Firefox add-on to do this, in a few minutes. But I can't see it taking less than an entire evening, in which case it wouldn't be worth it. It's surprising that Google didn't show any up-to-date solutions on the first page of results — I assumed it means there isn't one. – Evgeni Sergeev – 2013-09-09T13:23:48.697

Starting at Firefox 50 you can change the default value in the settings.

Type about:config in the browser's address bar and hit enter.
Confirm you will be careful if the warning prompt appears.
The parameter findbar.highlightAll determines whether highlight all is enabled or not when you search in Firefox.

Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/06/11/firefox-page-search-improvements/

Diego

Posted 2013-09-06T04:11:02.803

Reputation: 555

Wonderful! I can confirm that this works in Firefox 50.0.1, no addons needed. – RafG – 2016-11-30T14:21:29.417

I can confirm this. It should really be the default, though. And this should be the accepted answer :) – donquixote – 2017-02-02T23:01:44.527

4This should be the accepted answer – j08691 – 2017-02-07T17:03:31.147

2Just enabling now to me it stays enabled (i.e. ctrl + f, alt + `a' will leave the setting on). – Todd Partridge – 2017-06-25T14:43:01.953

2Yes: As of now, modern Firefox remembers your choice for Highlight All. No need to go into about:config any more. – Pistos – 2019-06-20T15:35:48.897

You don't need any extension nor to go to about:config.

Since Firefox 54, just do a search (ctrl+f) and enable highlight all (alt+a). It will remember that automatically on future searches.

It is not necessary anymore to enable it through about:config

(please, upvote so more people can know it)

Paulo Coghi - Reinstate Monica

Posted 2013-09-06T04:11:02.803

Reputation: 664

This works in FF68, much safer than mucking around with the config – Timmah – 2019-08-14T00:14:09.910

The extension Highlight all will highlight all occurrences of a work by double clicking on a word. I don't know if that will help you with what you want.

I couldn't find a way of toggling the highlight all button in about:config, but the case-senstive toggle is listed there, so it's probably not directly configurable.

smilingfrog

Posted 2013-09-06T04:11:02.803

Reputation: 121

Yes, I've seen "HighlightAll" too, but I think that means I'll need to double-click a word every time, which is not better than having to click "Highlight all" or typing Alt+A. – Evgeni Sergeev – 2013-09-09T04:01:02.383