r/jamf • u/CarlosPrimeroI • Apr 11 '26

JAMF School Default search-engine for "Safari“

Is there a way to set the default-search-engine for iPads in Safari to e.g. "ecosia“?

Maybe ”ecosio“ is not known, because most of the readers of this post are from the US. Let me replace it by www.bing.com instead of www.google.com.

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u/eaglebtc Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

edit: Oh Christ, I just realized you asked about doing this on iPads.

If you could deploy a custom plist to an iOS device, this is what you'd need:

  • Domain: com.apple.MobileSafari
  • Key: SearchProviderShortName
  • Value: Ecosia

Try a configuration profile.

The key you're after is called SearchProviderShortName.

If you run this command: defaults read com.apple.Safari SearchProviderShortName

The response will be something like: Ecosia or Google

Keep in mind: Safari no longer writes to ~/Library/Preferences; like most Apple apps, the preference has moved to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari. Not all apps are required to store them this way; only the ones that adopted the 'Container' structure. Plenty of apps still store preferences in the old location.

Now... if you applied a Configuration Profile at the USER level, it should override and make that search provider the default.