Google’s Circle to Search-Like Image Search Feature Comes to iOS via Official Shortcut: How to Download

Circle to Search — Google’s new visual search feature introduced on the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 series earlier this year — has made its way to many other smartphones over the past few months. Now, iPhone owners can also use a form of Circle to Search feature through the Google iOS app and Apple Shortcut. Unlike the Android version of Circle to Search, the iOS shortcut has some limitations and relies on Google Lens.

Google Lens design manager Minsang Choi announced the arrival of a new shortcut in the Google iOS app via a post on X (formerly Twitter). Called Search Your Screenshot, it will allow you to perform a custom action called Search Image with Lens through the Shortcuts app. When enabled, the shortcut takes a screenshot and uses Google Lens to search the image content.

To use the iPhone shortcut, you’ll need to make sure your phone is running iOS 13 or later and download the latest version of Google app for iOS. The shortcut can be accessed directly by tapping link shared by Choi on the iPhone. Alternatively, you can choose to set the shortcut manually by selecting Take a screenshot and followed by Search for an image with a lens.

While Android users can simply hold down the navigation bar to use the Circle to Search feature, iPhone owners can speed up the process of launching the shortcut by mapping it to the action button on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Meanwhile, navigating to Accessibility > A touch > Tap back in the Settings app will let you launch the shortcut using a double- or triple-tap gesture on most modern iPhone models.

While launching Google’s new shortcut is pretty easy once it’s set up, it’s limited in functionality compared to the Circle to Search feature on Android smartphones. While the shortcut will transfer your screenshot to Google Lens for visual search, you can’t draw a circle or highlight part of the screen to search up. However, it is a convenient way to quickly search for something on your iPhone with a few taps.