Google Might Allow Users To Search With Screenshots

Google Lens has proven to be a powerful tool for users to read QR codes, barcodes, do OCR (optical character recognition), search for products with a similar look, or translate text on-the-fly. It is possible that the company has combined the ‘Edit & Share screenshots’ menu with Google Lens to allow users to search with screenshots and Lens.

After examining the code of the latest Google app (10.61), a function called “Smart Screenshots” was discovered. In a new toolbar, it uses both the features of editing screenshots and Google Lens.

The toolbar will come in the form of a four-color light bar, and it will show itself after you take a screenshot. On the left, there is a small preview with a pencil button on top. Users can access the system share sheet, but frequently-used apps will also be suggested by Google.

Screen search could be replaced by Exploring with Lens given how the latter is all over the visual lookup in Chrome and other first-party apps. After a screenshot is taken, Smart Screenshots can easily conjure Lens for finding similar items, search, or OCR. The current tools like Sharing, Cropping, and Annotating will remain the same, and the new feature seems to share the same settings toggle when you want to enable it.

According to a report on 9to5Google, when you take a screenshot, Lens help you with both optical character recognition or finding similar items with Search. For now, the feature has not been released yet, and Google has said nothing about when it will be rolled out.

The release of Smart Screenshots further proves how powerful Google Lens is. We have not had any information on whether this will be for Google app only or it will come to the whole system.