What you need to know
- Google Lens is rolling out an update to users, which brings Visual Search history to their accounts.
- Visual Search history lets users rediscover what they’ve searched for through Lens, alongside the ability to download the photo from the cloud.
- Users must enable the feature within their account before Lens can begin retaining their visual searches.
Google Lens is picking up a feature today that offers users a convenient way to rediscover things they’ve visually searched for in the past.
As spotted by 9to5Google, users can now find their Visual Search history within their Google account. Lens’ ability to do so is said to be an “opt-in” feature, meaning users will have to enable it in their settings beforehand. This can be done by hopping into your Google account and going to Data & Privacy > Web & App activity > Include Visual Search History.
When on, Lens is said to automatically retain its captures, likely in a cloud-based magnitude, so users can rediscover what they’ve searched for.
However, the feature’s functionality seems limited as users can only take advantage of this from within the main Google app. Leveraging Lens from your camera app will not save that photo’s search results to your account. Similarly, searching a picture’s contents from Google Photos will also not be saved.
Rediscovering what you’ve previously searched for with Lens in Visual Search history will also let users save the photo.
What’s important here is that Google Lens’ inclusion of a better Visual Search history means everything isn’t immediately lost. Lens doesn’t save the photo a user takes when active, meaning it’s only temporarily held until the search is over and then discarded.
Google’s new Visual Search history isn’t appearing everywhere, and that’s likely due to the feature still being rolled out. It would be best to give the company a few days before it’s available all over. Additionally, the publication states users may see a prompt introducing Visual Search history once they receive it.
The addition of Visual Search history will likely aid Lens’ other features, like multisearch. The option could help those looking for several articles of clothing as users could combine a photo with a text descriptor to refine their search. Lens also gained the ability to help students with their math homework, and having a way to rediscover those pesky problems could help those study nights.