How To Use New Android Circle To Search

Google has released a new option for searching on Android and it is actually a useful feature. It is called “Circle to Search”. It is a new way to search for anything on your Android device without having to switch apps. With a simple gesture of circling, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping you can select something on your Android device’s screen you want to search for. Simplicity is the key benefit.

The new search method was announced in mid-January. Originally available on the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 series phones, the new search technique recently appeared in an upgrade to my Samsung S21. I could not find any information about which versions of Android this new feature is available on but if you have a newer phone running Android 14 and are still receiving application upgrades, it is probably coming to your phone.

How To Use

Launching Circle to Search depends on whether you display the three navigation buttons in the navigation bar. If you display the navigation buttons, long press the Home button. If you use swipe gestures in your navigation bar, long press the Gesture Navigation bar.

A search box will open at the bottom. Now select something to search for.

Text Search

In this example, I am selecting text. I can simply use my finger to draw a line over the text I want to search for, and Google will perform a search using that text. Here, I have selected the text “Copy & Paste Emojis” and Google has performed a search on that text.

Text In An Image Search

Circle To Search can also perform a search on the text in an image. In this example, I select the text “5 Useful Tips” from the image. Google then uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert the image to text and performs a search on that text.

Circling An Image Search

Circle To Search can also search from an image on the screen. It performs this search using a reverse image search. For more information about reverse image searches and how to perform them in different search engines, see the article How To Perform Reverse Image Searches.

In this example, there is an image of an animal on my screen and I want to find out what it is. I simply drew a circle around the animal with my finger and Google did the reverse image search. And it is a Tasmanian Devil!

Miscellaneous

After you have performed a search, you can refine the search using the text box or the microphone. For example, in the above search that found the Tasmanian Devil, I could tap the microphone and say “sounds” to find out what sounds a Tasmanian Devil makes. 

At the top of the Circle To Search screen, you can exit the screen. You can also view your search history or clear the last 15 minutes of your searches from your search history.

Settings

Note: The following are the settings on a Samsung phone running Android version 14 and One UI version 6.1. The Circle To Search functionality was added with Release 2024-05-10. The settings may differ on other phones.

To check if you have Circle To Search, or to turn the feature off or on, first go to Android Settings. Then select Display. Scroll down and select the Navigation bar. Near the bottom is a toggle that you can use to turn the feature on or off.

Bottom Line

Circle to Search is a new feature on Android phones that lets you search for anything showing on your device’s screen without having to switch apps. You can use a simple gesture of circling, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping to select something on your device that you want to search for. This is a simple and useful new feature. It was originally available only on the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 series phones but is showing up on other devices now.

Let me know in the comments whether your phone has Circle to Search. If you do have it, let me know if you find it useful.

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