Google Lens is what you get when you import the giant mountains of data from other Google services into a camera app.
Point your phone at a product and Google Lens will find out what it is and how much it costs online. Show it as a beacon, and Lens will identify it using the extensive Google Images library and attach it to useful information such as opening hours.
If there is text, Google Lens will use optical character recognition to identify it, and you can use it as a search term without typing it yourself.
It’s been around since 2017, but rather than going silent like so many other Google projects, Google Lens has slowly built up more impressive forces – many of which are less well known or understood.
That’s why we’ve rounded up some of our favorite Google Lens tricks here to show you how it can save you time and effort, or instantly search for things you might encounter in the real world. But first, here’s how you can find it on Android and iPhone.
How to get Google Lens on Android
If you have a recent Android phone, it is possible that a lens mode is already built into the camera app.
Look at the Google Lens icon (below), which is a pair of circles swallowed up by three sides of a square.
Nothing there? Just download the Google Lens app from the Play Store.
Using the Google Lens app is a lot like using a camera app. There is a relaxation button on one side, marked with the search icon, because you do not end up taking pictures with Lens.
Instead, the phone freezes the view effectively and gives Google Lens a scene to analyze, so you do not have to hold the camera in the right place while Lens does its thing.
How to get Google Lens on iPhone
The Google Lens experience is slightly different for iPhone users. Instead of having a standalone app or being integrated with the camera, Lens is built into the official Google app – which you can download for free from the App Store.
From here, it’s simply a case of tapping the Google Lens icon in the search bar (to the left of the microphone), which you can see circled in red below.
It opens the camera viewfinder, which gives you access to translation, shopping, texting, and food search options – in fact, almost anything you point to will be able to search Lens.
There’s another way to use Google Lens on iPhone – when you open a photo in the Google Photos app, you see the Lens icon in the bottom row of icons (second from the right). Allows you to search for information about the objects or topics in your Photos library – for example, a particularly nice bottle of wine that you have signed up for future reference.
Using Google Lens: The Basics
When you press the search button in Google Lens (on Android or iPhone), you see blue dots in the image highlighting points of interest, and any recognizable text is covered by a translucent white block.
Tap on this and Google Lens will return the relevant results. With the app, you can also select a category to set up the kind of results you will see.
It varies from platform to platform, but on Android you see options like Dining, Places, Shopping, Homework, Search, Text and Translate. It’s the same on the iPhone, just without the homework option, which is a very impressive shortcut to solving math questions.
Here are 11 of the best things you can do right now with Google Lens.
The 11 Best Ways to Use Google Lens
1. Scan barcodes
Google Lens has no problem with barcodes. After all, it’s just a way of coding a number that identifies a product.
This is a very easy way to look things up online without taking a picture of the front or its name. It works sometimes, but the barcode approach keeps us consistent.
To scan a barcode, simply point the Google Lens camera at a barcode (on iPhone it is best to select the ‘Shopping’ tab at the bottom), wait until it marks the code with a blue dot and press if necessary the shutter. It will then call up the product name and connect you to some online stores to buy it. Handy.
2. Check restaurant reviews while walking
Google Lens takes your location into account when harvesting results. Go to the Places tab in the app, hold it in front of a restaurant or store front, and in most cases the app will open its Google profile.
From here, you can see how it’s rated according to Google’s reviews, and you can get a link to the site’s website – if it’s a restaurant, you’ll probably see the menu as well.
Of course, the building does not have to be a restaurant – you can also use Google Lens as a virtual tour guide to learn more about local landmarks and get useful information about their opening hours, historical facts and more.
Learn more about that restaurant dish
Have you ever wondered what something is on a menu, but can not get the attention of a busy waiter or waitress? Google Lens is perfect for this.
Just tap on a scanned menu, and Lens will show you a description of the dish and even recipes for it. This is useful if you want to know what’s probably in the restaurant’s own version, or you want to learn how to make it yourself at home.
Even better for the indecisive, Lens will also sometimes highlight the restaurant’s most popular dishes for you, allowing you to delve further into reviews and real photos taken from Google Maps.
4. Check prices
We love bargains, and Google Lens is a great way to find out if a store’s retail prices are a good price. Take a picture of a product on the ‘Shopping’ tab in the app, and online listings are prioritized in the search results.
Try to take the item yourself if it is the type of image used on the product page, and has unique identifications, such as the name. Otherwise you can try to shoot the box or its label.
Google Lens may be smart, but it’s unlikely that you’ll recognize a particular pair of jeans, for example. In that case, scanning the label would be the better option for more accurate results.
5. Find photos you have already taken
You don’t have to use the built-in camera with Google Lens – images from your gallery also work just fine, which means it works for something someone sent you, for example WhatsApp.
Press both Android and iPhone on the small mountain icon next to the shutter button to open your photo gallery in the Google Lens app.
This is very useful for images with text in them, as Google Lens will try to locate all text in the image, which can then be searched and translated into different languages. Convenient if you are abroad and trying to pick up the language right away – or simply determining the name of a place you have visited.
6. Translate text directly
Translation is one of the most useful features of Google Lens. More than 100 languages are supported because it is fed into Google’s long-standing Translate service.
The translation of text that it recognizes is neat, but Google Lens goes further. The translated text is mapped to the image in an augmented reality. This is especially useful for menus and signs, we find. But you can also use it for things like train tickets, like below.
Restaurant menus are obviously not where the function starts and ends. We all felt a little lost or overwhelmed in a foreign land. In this case, Google Lens can help you in a snap, for example if you need directions, or to find out the specialty of a store you want to explore.
Do you like this feature? Also try the standalone Google Translate app. It performs translations in real time, again in an augmented reality, handy when you are not away from home and can not read the local language.
7. Get help with your math homework
The Google Lens homework tab (currently Android only) sounds like a way to cheat your math homework, but it’s actually a lot smarter than that – and it offers more educational insight than you might think.
Of course, if you take a simple mathematical calculation, the links shown will include the Google calculator and the solution, if applicable. But Google also provides ‘Key Concept’ information for algebraic equations, which tells you the basics of what’s going on in the problem.
Mathematics is a difficult subject to learn at the best of times. Google Lens can therefore provide insight into how more advanced mathematical concepts work, and we may think that it is a useful tool for reviewing and preparing for exams.
8. Read articles
Google Lens also makes extensive use of Google’s voice synthesis software. Using the Text tab, for example, you can scan an article, a postcard, or the back of a grain package and get Lens to read it aloud.
A listen button will appear in the results when you scan text. We find this an excellent accessibility option and can be a great blessing for users with dyslexia, or even those who want to learn pronunciations of foreign words.
That’s right, the Listening feature also works with non-English text. We tried to portray both the French and the German text from the photos we took, and in both cases the phrases were audibly pronounced with appropriate local voices.
9. Copy text or notes to your laptop
One feature of Google Lens is a very clear application of the technology. You can copy scanned text to the clipboard of your phone, because of course you can – but the app goes one step further than that.
With Google Lens, you can also copy the text to your computer or laptop. All you have to do is install the Chrome browser and be on the same Google Account that you use on your phone. There is a ‘Copy to a computer’ button for this function, and it places the text on the clipboard of your laptop.
This can be a handy shortcut if, for example, you find a piece of text on your phone that you want to refer to later, perhaps for an essay or research. This text can then be transferred to your computer or laptop for future use.
Impressively, Google Lens can now also copy handwritten notes from your phone to your computer, as long as your handwriting is relatively neat. Just point the lens at the notes, highlight them, and hit ‘copy’ – then you can go to a document in your Chrome browser and paste the text.
10. Learn about artwork
While the Google app can be used to identify songs, Google Lens is particularly good at identifying visuals such as paintings and digital artwork.
This is a fairly simple but handy application of Google’s image search. You can use the standard ‘search’ tab for this on Android and iPhone.
From there, you can search for similar images, search for the same image in different sizes, study the origin of the image, and, if it’s a digital work of art, discover who drew it and find links to their sites and social media pages.
11. Identify plants and animals
The same Google Image Search Marts can also be used to identify dogs, cats, and plant species. Again, this is done with content that Google already has in place.
For example, if you search for ‘Jack Russell Terrier’ on Google, there is a ready-made profile of the dog breed. It contains details such as their life expectancy, average height and weight, and the general personality traits of the breed. By recognizing a type of dog, cat or plant in an image, Lens can simply pull this thing up right away.
We also used Google Lens to identify a eucalyptus plant and were able to learn all about it when the photo we took took us to the relevant Google search results. Do you do research on plants that can look beautiful in the house? This feature of Google Lens is the best option, with surprisingly accurate results.