This archive report was first published on 24 August 2019.
Google Photos has long been a feature-packed image viewer and storage service, but one key feature was missing: the ability to search for text within images.
That changed in 2019, when Google announced it was integrating Google Lens into the service, bringing optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities to the platform.
With OCR, users can now search for specific words or phrases within their photos, and the service will surface any images that contain those words.
When a user searches for a particular word or phrase, the results will include a Google Lens icon, which allows them to copy the text from the image.
According to Google, this feature will be useful for tasks like copying Wi-Fi passwords from receipts or other documents.
The feature is currently rolling out to Google Photos users, so it may take some time to become available on your device.
