All search engine options gone and only Brave Search remains

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1

Hi!

My Brave browser has removed all search engines, except for Brave Search

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And when I go into “Manage search engines and site search” I can’t add any additional engines, only edit the Brave search

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Brave browser version: v 1.86.146

Windows version: Windows 11 Pro, build 26200.7628

2

@ste_wilko

Try . . .

Create a new user Profile for Testing:

Create and use AN ADDITIONAL Brave Browser user Profile (Menu --> More tools --> Add profile) - only ← meaning: Do not have any other Brave Browser user Profile tabs/windows open.

When creating this new Brave Browser user Profile for test purposes

  • Do not import anything.
  • Do not add any extensions.
  • Do not allow/enable any Brave Browser “bells and whistles” such as Brave Rewards, Brave Talk, etc.

IF this test Brave Browser user Profile does not present your problem, then possibly, the profile that you have been using, has a problem . . . and that might be caused by one or more extensions, or too many tabs ← complex/conundrum.

Detailed info about testing - IF, in regard to memory and performance issues:

Create a new profile to help Troubleshoot

‘Where Brave Browser Profiles Are Located’

3

This issue has actually happened before but was fixed quite a bit ago:

Let me ask some of the devs to take a look here.

4

I did this and the new profile had all the search engines, as expected

1 Like
5

This doesn’t have a method to fix, other than to upgrade to a version that has been superseded by my current version

6

I had this happen some time ago randomly, around the same time I lost my sync chain from my desktop to..the chain. But then one Brave update later, it came back.

It’s ironic though the GitHub post is closed months (more than half a year honestly) before I ran into the issue (which I think was only just a few weeks ago). No solution was provided to me until it just came back on its own after an update, which clearly re-wrote some corrupt file.

7

Right, which like me, means it’ll reappear on the next Brave update.

I think Local State or Preferences gets corrupt, and somehow updating Brave fixes these issues. (That’s my opinion on it at least).

8

It’s definitely something to do with the profile. I created a new one and copied everything over from my old profile and the problem persisted.

So, to fix it, I’ve created a fresh new profile :man_shrugging:

9

@ste_wilko I was simply pointing out that the issue had occurred before and should have been resolved. I will reply back here when I hear back from the devs about this.

10

The Github post infers it was fixed last year, but clearly (and you were there) in 2026 it was not in fact fixed.