Google has finally come up with something very easy to look for particular images with a text through its Photos app.
Over the years, the tech giant launched multiple object recognition features powered by Google Lens for its backup application, so it doesn’t end up to a photo dump where you can’t find anything anymore.
Now, Google has begun rolling out the ability to search for pictures in Photos through the identified text in them.
Both new features use a technique called optical character recognition (OCR), with the copy/paste choice building on Lens’ current ability to understand and pull out the text found within images, be it a screenshot or a photo of a physical sign or document. According to 9to5Google, this new feature is available now on some Android devices, although it does not appear to be that active on iOS till now. Users may already be able to search their images for text using Google Photos on the web.
Google is placing the Lens feature as a way to easily snag a confounding Wi-Fi password, but it can also be used to catch any part of text from any photo or screenshot in the users’ Google Photos library on a case-by-case basis. The ability to search for any snippet of text without having to pick a photo first is more impressive. That hints Google is performing OCR on our whole photo collection automatically.
“Starting this month, we’re rolling out the ability to search your photos by the text in them,” wrote Google in response to prominent venture capitalist Hunter Walk, who observed earlier this week that the Lens feature had been turned on for his account. “Once you find the image you’re looking for, click the Lens button to easily copy and paste the text.”
