Translate can be very useful, especially if you are in a foreign country and need some guidance, e.g. You may use it to look up a place, select a restaurant, or search for the selected item online. You can copy the text, run a search using it, listen to it, or have it translated.Ī tap on the icon on the left (with the three horizontal bars that get smaller) displays a menu bar with additional options. The first couple of words of the text and some options are displayed on the screen once text is selected. You may also use the icon on the right to draw a rectangle on the screen to have all text inside included, or tap on 'select all' afterwards to have all text selected. Google Photos may select part of the text only, but you can move the opening and end icons around on the screen to make sure that the right text is selected. Note: The functionality requires an active Internet connection users who are privacy conscious may not want to use it because of that. Actually, the service is powered by Google Lens but the feature is integrated in the Google Photos app.

The Google Photos application should identify text on photos automatically and display the 'copy text from image' option. To get started, open a photo with text or take a photo with text on your Android device. A Pixel 3a was used for the guide, and I checked my wife's Moto device which had the Photos app and the feature as well.

In this guide, I'll walk you through the main options that Google Photos provides.

Since that is a useful feature sometimes, it is worth taking a closer look at how this works. Apart from providing you with text, it supports running searches and translating the text.

It looks like your typical OCR feature on first glance, but when you use it, you will quickly realize that it offers more than that. When you open a photo with text, you should see an option called 'copy text from image'.

Google translate photo to text