Safari keeps replacing spaces with %20 when searching in address bar

Why does this bug exist?
What is the solution?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.2

Posted on Apr 5, 2023 12:09 AM

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My Safari has stopped giving me a space to type in web addresses. What happened? How can I fix it? My Safari has stopped giving me a space to type in web addresses and searches. Has anyone experienced that, and if so, how do I fix it?
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Spaces Turn Into %20 During Searches Very related to this six year old post Safari replaces space with %20 in search … - Apple Community that is so old that it is locked and prompted me to make a new post. This bug is still occurring in the current version of Safari (16.5), where I type something into the address bar to search for it, if I hit enter a bit too quickly (the "quickly" part being related to another issue that I will post and update here with a link later) after typing, it treats my search as a URL instead of a search query. As part of this, it replaces all the spaces in my query with the URL-encoded character for space, %20, and I end up with a "Page Not Found". It seems like it should be obvious that if there are spaces in what I've typed, I'm not trying to enter a URL. I would say almost everyone knows you can't have spaces in a URL, and I doubt the majority of users are manually typing their way into a URL's query parameters and using spaces and expecting them to be converted to spaces ( for example ```amazon.com?product=black iphone 14 pro max``` I mean seriously are people doing this????). I'd expect that if I type a string with spaces, it would be treated as a search query and not a URL. There are numerous other places mentioning this issue as well (https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/aa2qd6/why_does_safari_do_this_when_trying_to_search/# for example). Could we please get this fixed? It completely ruins the searching in the browser experience. I don't want to have to go type in "google.com" and then make my search there (as is my current workaround when this happens) when google is already my set search engine in safari settings! I also want to mention that don't want help "fixing this issue." No suggestions of clearing my cache, or restarting safari, or tweaking some files that deal with safari. I've tried all that and the bug still comes up, I have even gotten a new MacBook since initially experiencing this bug a long time ago and done a clean install and it still happens. What I want is for this to be recognized Apple team and fixed at the software level. It is clear that this is not a problem with only me as this has been shown to be a six-year-old issue and brought up in multiple places. And since that post was locked, I am again bringing this up so it can get attention and hopefully be fixed. Thank you for reading, that is all!
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Black Line Across New Tab in Safari Every time I create a new tab in safari, I see a black line across the search/URL bar (see screenshot). Anyone know how to remove this? I've tried restarting safari and my computer- no luck.
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1 reply

John Galt

Level 10

153,502 points

Apr 5, 2023 07:28 AM in response to Art_is_beauty

I understand that space characters you type in Safari's Search bar are being replaced with %20.

Which search engine are you using: Change Search settings in Safari on Mac - Apple Support?

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Safari keeps replacing spaces with %20 when searching in address bar

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