14 DAY TRIAL // Google Photos users will be able to look for specific text when trying to find something inside the library.
If you have an Android, chances are that you’re already using Google Photos. It’s an application that fulfills a large number of functions, as a library, an image viewer, and so much more. It also integrates a few other Google services, including Lens.
Google Lens is a very useful function that lets people point the camera at anything and get helpful information about that object, landmark, and so on. It also works inside the Google Photos library to a smaller degree.
Let’s say you need to find a particular photo and you know that you took it at the beach. Just search for “beach” and only those photos are going to be displayed.
Looking for text
Another interesting feature is the option to scan documents and save them to Google Photos. Now, Google revealed that users would be able to look for text, and the Lens function will be able to read it.
To be fair, Google Lens could already read the text when used in conjunction with the camera, but the fact that the OCR (optical character recognition) function of Lens can be used in the library is a big step forward.
On the other hand, Google didn’t officially announce the feature, and someone figured it out by mistake. Google then took to Twitter to confirm that it’s now possible.
Some of you might have some security concerns, but they shouldn’t have, at least for now. We talked with Google a while back, and we covered the Google Photos online service in great detail in a piece we called “The Honey Trap of Google Photos, an Online Service Like No Other.”
While the service does have some drawbacks, stuff like the addition of Lens to the library makes it indispensable, and it’s one of the reasons why it doesn’t really have any real competition.
You spotted it! Starting this month, we’re rolling out the ability to search your photos by the text in them.Once you find the photo you’re looking for, click the Lens button to easily copy and paste text. Take that, impossible wifi passwords š — Google Photos (@googlephotos) August 22, 2019