My favorite Search Circle feature is also the most underrated

While Google Circle to search Although in theory it is a useful tool, I find that in practice the results vary significantly. Sometimes the answers he gives me are accurate and other times, wildly inconsistent. As a result, Circle to Search has become one of those tools that I don’t actually use much despite all the advertised benefits. That is, with the exception of one very useful function that I use it for more and more every day.

Circle to Search is generally good at identifying products that are available online, but when it comes to recognizing other items, my experience has been mixed. This may be because I am in a non-Western market, as the LLM training data seems to skew toward the US, Europe, and other Western regions.

I used Circle to Search to try to identify plants, insects, phone models, and more. I also just tested it to see if it can identify my cat’s breed. Most of the time, it does not produce the correct results. I frequently misidentify the plants in my garden, choosing species from different regions of the world.

When I tried to use it to help me identify an insect infesting one of my plants, it even gave me a different answer each time. The first time, he told me they were zombie ants, so I thought he was having a the last of us Situation in my garden. The only way I found an answer was to ask my Android Authority colleagues and using a single image on a local website to discover that they were lantana insects.

Circle to Search also thinks my HONOR 400 Pro is an iPhone, something I realized after some readers accused me of using an Apple device in some of my photos. And when it comes to my cat, Circle to Search believes his unusual ears are because he is a Scottish Fold or another breed with folded ears. However, it is due to a partial pinnectomy. You can tell that he is not a Scottish Fold or another of these folded thoroughbreds by the shape of his face and eyes.

All in all, since Circle to Search’s accuracy isn’t great, I don’t use it much.

However, there is one exception. Circle to Search is currently the easiest way to copy text in apps that don’t let you easily select parts of messages. I experience this more on WhatsApp and Slack, as both apps only allow you to copy an entire message. But when I hold down the home button to activate Circle to Search, I can highlight individual pieces of text and copy them to my clipboard.

I first tried this at a local Pokémon Go community group. In the group, we include our in-game names and friend codes as member tags to make it easy to add each other for raids. However, WhatsApp does not allow you to copy member tags. Tapping them simply opens the person’s profile. We realized that by enabling Circle to Search, we could easily copy others’ friend codes. I didn’t even have to circle the text I wanted to copy. Simply touching it was enough for the overlay to select it for me.

I tried this trick in other applications where it is not always possible to select text. It works for search engine previews that you normally can’t select, social media posts, tasks in apps, and more. You can even use it to select text on images. Basically, Circle to Search allows OCR on demand. Because it is linked to a home button. shortcut on androidIt’s also incredibly easy to activate.

Since Circle to Search is available on most new android phonesIt’s also a trick you can try even if you don’t have a Pixel. In fact, those who don’t own a Pixel are the ones who will benefit the most from it. In pixel phonesYou can now select text using the app switcher UI. But that feature is not available on other Android devices.

While a simple OCR screen reader isn’t a feature that generates as much buzz as getting product recommendations from an image or translating text from another language, this simple feature is the one I use the most. Unlike image identification, it is also much less error-prone. I have yet to come across any cases where Circle to Search misread the text it was selecting and copying. Simplicity and reliability are the recipe for success in this case.