TL;DR
- Google Photos is working on improving how you select and copy text in images.
- A new button will appear when the app detects text in a picture.
- Google also appears to be expanding its Expressive UI design to more Settings pages.
Google is once again working on a couple of changes for the Photos app. Earlier this month, we reported on Ask Photos possibly letting users edit their image metadata. This time, the Photos team is developing a better way to select and copy text from an image. On top of that, Material 3 Expressive is expanding to more areas in the app.
New Text Selection Tool
When Google Photos detects text in a picture, it currently offers a couple of ways for you to copy it. One method is to bring up the image details by swiping up on the photo. In the details, you’ll see an option to copy the text, which opens Google Lens. The other method is to trigger Google Lens directly from the three-dot menu.
While investigating version 7.84 of the Google Photos app, we found a new way to select and copy text from an image. Google Photos appears to be working on a built-in text selection tool for pictures.
When the Photos app detects text, you’ll see a new icon in the bottom right corner of the screen. Tapping this button scans the text and highlights it so you can copy it. A Copy All button will appear at the bottom of the screen, and tapping it will copy all detected text at once. You can also long-press to select only the specific text you want to copy.
Material 3 Expressive UI Expanding
Back in January, Google revamped the Backup page in Google Photos with the Material 3 Expressive design language. Now it appears Google is ready to expand its Expressive UI to a couple more areas. The refresh has been spotted on the Settings and Preferences pages, where each option sits in its own container, making the page easier to read and visually separating each section.
For now, Settings and Preferences are the only two pages being updated in this round. Sharing, Apps & devices, Notifications, and other pages still use the old UI, though Google will likely address those in a future update.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. It is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
