Google now rolling out text search in Photos

Google Photos continues to get more and more powerful. You can search through your photo library in very specific ways, with the service even recognizing different car brands and filtering through them. However, one feature that’s long been missing is optical character recognition, or OCR.

Basically, OCR allows for Google to see the text in your photos, and will allow you to search that text. So if you’re trying to find a screenshot or a photo of a billboard, you can search for the text that’s in said image and get the proper result.

Luckily this feature is finally rolling out over the next month! Google Photos announced on Twitter that the rollout has begun in response to a user who saw that the feature is now available. You can also hit the Lens button and copy the text in the image, making for searches much easier.

Most of us will not see the feature at the moment, but we should all receive it soon. It’s another great addition to the Google Photos service, so head to the app and check to see if you can search for text terms!

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 😏

— Google Photos (@googlephotos) August 22, 2019