What Is Circle to Search and How Do You Use It?

Circle to Search lets you look up anything on your phone's screen — a photo, a word, a product, a video frame — by circling, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping it, without switching apps or taking a screenshot first. It launched on January 31, 2024 on the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S24 series, and Google now says it runs on Pixel 6 and later plus a widening list of Galaxy and other Android phones. There is no separate Circle to Search app to download: it rides inside the Google app and Android System Intelligence, and it turns on or off from a single Settings toggle. Here is exactly how it works, which phones and apps support it, how to switch it on or off, and what to do when it stops working.

How Circle to Search Works

Circle to Search is built on Google Lens' visual-search engine, but instead of pointing a camera at something, you select it directly from whatever is already on your screen. According to Google's own support documentation, you "touch and hold the Home button or navigation handle," then "circle, highlight, or tap" the text, image, or video you want to search. The system takes it from there: a results panel slides up over the bottom half of the screen while the app you were using stays visible above it, so you never lose your place.

Once a search is running, you can refine your selection by dragging its borders, add typed words to narrow the query, or drag the results panel's handle to resize it. A two-finger pan also lets you reposition the panel without closing it. Beyond plain lookups, Google has layered on a few extras over time:

• Translate: tap Translate to convert an entire on-screen page instantly, and keep translating as you scroll.
• Find the Look: circle an outfit in a photo or video to get matching or similar items for sale.
• Try It On: virtually preview select clothing on a model photo (requires users to be 18 or older with history and personalized recommendations turned on, and is limited to select regions).
• AI Overviews: for more complex questions, Circle to Search can pull together an AI-generated summary from multiple sources instead of a plain results list.

Google's support page notes that some of the newest capabilities — including in-camera search on the Pixel 11 series — are limited to devices "that support AI Mode and AI Overviews," so two phones that both technically "have" Circle to Search can still offer a different depth of feature set.

Circle to Search on Android, iPhone, Samsung and Pixel

Circle to Search behaves slightly differently depending on whether you're on a Pixel, a Galaxy phone, another Android device, or an iPhone. Here's the breakdown, based on Google's and Samsung's own support pages.

The iPhone row is the one people most often get confused about. Apple's platform rules don't let a third-party app overlay a system-wide gesture the way Android does, so Google couldn't ship an identical Circle to Search on iOS. Instead, in a February 2025 update detailed on the Google blog, Google brought a close cousin — "Search Screen with Google Lens" — to Chrome and the Google app for iPhone and iPad. It uses the same circle-highlight-tap gestures and the same Lens-powered results, but only inside those two apps, not across the whole operating system. If you've seen "circle to search iphone" described as more limited than the Android version, that's the reason: it's real, it's from Google, and it just lives in a narrower space.

Device makers also gate the feature behind their own software: a Galaxy phone that hasn't picked up its current One UI update or a Pixel still waiting on the latest Android release may not show the Circle to Search toggle at all until that update lands.

Circle to Search vs. Google Lens: What's the Difference?

Circle to Search and Google Lens share the same underlying visual-search technology, which is why people frequently mix them up. The difference is mostly about where you start the search from.

In practice, Circle to Search is best described as Google Lens brought to the surface of the operating system itself, so you can search what's already on your display instead of opening the camera first.

How to Turn Circle to Search On or Off

On most Android phones, Circle to Search ships turned on by default, but it's easy to flip it off — or back on — in a few steps.

General Android steps (per Google's support page):

1. Open your device's Settings app.
2. Search for "Circle to Search."
3. Tap Circle to Search.
4. Turn the toggle off (or back on).

On a Pixel phone:

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap System.
3. Toggle Circle to Search off or on.

On a Samsung Galaxy phone, Samsung's own support documentation routes the toggle through the navigation settings instead of a system menu:

1. Open Settings and tap Display.
2. Tap Navigation bar.
3. Turn on (or off) Circle to Search.

Once it's on, press and hold the Home button or navigation handle from any app, circle or tap what you want to search, and swipe down, use the back gesture, or tap the X to exit.

Circle to Search History: How to View or Delete It

Circle to Search doesn't keep a separate history log of its own. Google's support documentation ties the feature's personalization — including who can use features like Try It On — directly to your account's Web & App Activity setting, which is the same setting that stores your regular Search and Lens history. That means anything you look up with Circle to Search is saved (or not saved) exactly the way the rest of your Google Search activity is.

To review or clear it:

1. Go to myactivity.google.com while signed into the Google account you use on your phone.
2. Browse by day, or use the search box and filters to find Circle to Search or Lens-related entries.
3. Select an item (or a date range) and tap Delete, or use "Delete activity by" to clear a whole period at once.

If you'd rather stop this kind of activity from being saved going forward, turn off Web & App Activity for your account from the same My Activity controls. Keep in mind Google's support page warns that some personalized features, like the 18+ Try It On tool, require history and personalized recommendations to stay turned on, so disabling activity tracking can quietly switch off those extras too.

Circle to Search Not Working? How to Fix the Most Common Problems

The single most common error is "Screen search isn't available," and it almost always traces back to one of a handful of causes that Google's and Samsung's own troubleshooting pages both describe.

On a Pixel or other stock-Android phone:

• Go to Settings > Apps > Default apps > Digital assistant app, and confirm Google is set as your default digital assistant.
• In that same screen, make sure "Use screen and app data" is turned on — Circle to Search needs this permission to read what's on your display.
• Open the Google Play Store, search for the Google app, and install any pending update.

On a Samsung Galaxy phone, Samsung's support page points to a differently named but equivalent setting:

• Go to Settings > Advanced features (or General management) > Accessibility > Vision, and enable "Analyze on-screen image."
• Restart the phone, which clears out temporary glitches that can block the gesture.
• Check Settings > Software update to make sure you're not on an older One UI build that predates Circle to Search support.
• Clear the Google app's cache if the feature was working before and recently stopped.

If it only fails inside one specific app — including the common "circle to search not working on TikTok" complaint — the cause is usually the app itself, not your phone. Circle to Search (like any screen-reading tool) cannot capture content in apps or on videos that block screen capture or screen recording for copyright or security reasons; some video players, banking apps, and DRM-protected streams fall into that category. Many workplace- or school-managed phones also apply a screenshot-blocking policy that has the same effect inside apps like TikTok. In both cases, the fix isn't on your end: it's a deliberate restriction set by the app or by a device-management policy, and no Circle to Search setting will override it. Updating the app you're trying to search in, and confirming you're not on a managed work profile, are the only things worth checking before concluding it's simply unsupported there.

Finally, remember the baseline requirements: Circle to Search needs an active internet connection to return results, and it only works on devices Google and the manufacturer have actually enabled it for — so if you're on an older or budget phone, "not working" may really mean "not supported yet."

Is There a Circle to Search APK? What You Should Know

Circle to Search is not a standalone app with its own install file, so there's no official "Circle to Search APK" to seek out. The feature is built into the Google app and Android System Intelligence, and Google turns it on at the system level for supported phones through ordinary Google Play updates — the same channel that updates any other app on your phone. If a phone doesn't show the toggle, installing an app that claims to be a Circle to Search APK won't add Google's real feature; at best it's an unrelated third-party clone with its own (unofficial) search shortcuts, and at worst it's a security risk, since sideloaded APKs from outside the Play Store bypass Google's malware scanning.

The legitimate way to get Circle to Search if it's missing is to make sure your phone is on a supported model and a current OS build, then update the Google app and your system software through the Play Store and Settings > Software update, rather than searching for an APK anywhere else.

Bottom Line: What's Next for Circle to Search

Circle to Search has moved quickly from a two-phone launch in January 2024 to a standard feature across most current Pixel and Galaxy hardware, with Google continuing to fold in AI Overviews, shopping features like Find the Look, and an iPhone-adjacent version through Chrome and the Google app. If you're shopping for a phone specifically because of this feature, it's now safe to assume any recent flagship — compare, for instance, a Pixel 11 against a Galaxy S26 — will include it out of the box, while the deciding factor is increasingly which extra AI-powered extras (camera search, virtual try-on) ship on top of the basic gesture. For most people, the fastest way to confirm it's working is the simplest: long-press your Home button or nav handle, circle something on your screen, and see what comes back.

Written byNadia Osei

Nadia Osei covers mobile and consumer gadgets for Pandromeda: smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, earbuds and smart-home devices. She tracks launches, software updates and pricing across Apple, Google, Samsung and the rest, and builds comparisons from the manufacturers' published specifications.

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