Google Lens is one of the company’s most useful and impressive tools: with it, you can scan objects from the world around you to learn more about everything from plants to pets, as well as extract text directly from image. However, it turns out that there is a quick and easy way to scan with Google Lens that many Pixel owners just don’t take advantage of.
How do you use Google Lens? If you’re like most of us, you’ll probably take a photo, open Photos, and use Lens in the app to scan your image. You might use the Google Lens app itself or the lens icon in the Google app or the home screen. Google made sure there were many ways to use Lens on both Android and iPhone so that as many people as possible could find and use the feature.
However, none of these methods are as convenient or fast as you probably didn’t know (sure you didn’t know). Instead of taking a photo and then going to the Photos app to scan it, you can scan the subject directly in the Camera app. With the Camera app open, all you have to do is tap the screen and Google Lens will start scanning your subject. This skill is also nothing new. For some reason, the shortcut just went under the Android radar: I learned the trick from a Reddit post.
Now, this method isn’t the only hidden way to use Google Lens: if you have an open image in one of your previously used applications, you can use this same trick to scan it from the application switch. Swipe up to activate the switch, go to the app preview with the image, then long press the preview to see the option to scan the image with Google Lens.