Android Magazine

Circle to search anything on your phone—without switching apps.

May 16, 2024

Circle to search anything on your phone—without switching apps.

Say you’re scrolling through social media and come across a video, photo, or article that catches your attention. You want to know what kind of dog you’re seeing, where your friend bought their cool new jacket, or what a phrase you’ve never heard before means. But you don’t want to switch apps and risk losing your spot. With Circle to Search on your Android smartphone, you don’t have to. Circle to Search is a new, simpler way to find what you’re looking for on select Android devices. With intuitive gestures like circling, scribbling, highlighting, and tapping, you can learn about what’s on your screen without having to switch apps. Learning how to use Circle to Search opens up the door to a faster, more convenient search experience that you can only get on Android.

How to use Circle to Search on your Android smartphone.

When you find something interesting, long press the Home button to activate the feature. If your smartphone is set to Gesture navigation mode, you’ll long press the navigation handle instead.

After you hold down the Home button or navigation handle, the Google Search bar will pop up at the bottom of your screen. That and a colorful animation let you know that Circle to Search is ready to use.

You can also turn this feature on and off by going into Settings and finding “Hold home to search” or “Hold handle to search” depending on which mode you use.

Search and discover instantly with Circle to Search.

Circle to Search offers the wow factor of letting you instantly find what you’re looking for without needing to switch apps. With this feature, you can

  • Circle an image on social media.
  • Highlight text in a Message and copy it.
  • Scribble on a photo of a product you’d like to buy.
  • Tap on the logo of a local business you want to support.
  • Zoom in and pan across an image by pressing the screen with two fingers.

Your friend shares a video of hacks for keeping plants happy and healthy on the go. The plants in the video are beautiful, but you don’t know what they are. Just use Circle to Search, and you can instantly find the answer you’re looking for. When you come across a YouTube Short of a cute puppy playing bongos, Circle to Search helps you identify the breed, learn a bit about it, and go right back to watching.
By making a circling or scribbling gesture on an image, video, or text, you can get information in an instant when something sparks your curiosity. With Circle to Search, the possibilities are endless, and the only limit is your imagination.

Do even more with multisearch & AI-powered overviews.

Thanks to Google AI, you can take your journey with Circle to Search even further. In select regions and languages, you can use multisearch to dive deeper into your results and get more insights. When you circle that container of gochujang, you can use multisearch to ask follow-up questions like “What is it made of?” or “Where can I buy this?”

Available in Available in and for certain queries, AI-powered overviews give you an all-in-one look at the topic at hand for even more convenient searching. And once you have what you need, you can get back to your original context without switching apps.

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