Home
News
You are here

Two new capabilities are added to the popular Circle to Search feature

Google adds two useful tools to the popular Circle to Search feature.

1comment

By Alan Friedman

Published: Jun 13, 2025, 3:45 PM

A promo for Google's Circle to Search shows someone usinf the feature on an Android phone.

Google's Circle to Search on Android phones has become one of those rare AI hits that might have reached this high level of popularity due to its simplicity. Hell, all of us can usually draw a circle and the simple name of the feature tells us exactly what to do and what information we can expect to get from the feature. Just because Circle to Search is popular doesn't mean that improvements can't be made.

In the most recent version of the Google app, (version 16.22.44.sa.arm64 beta), Android Authority discovered that Google is planning to make two changes to Circle to Search. One change relates to song recognition while the second deals with translation capabilities.

To use Circle to Search on your Android phone, you must use gesture navigation. Long press on the home gesture bar which is the little line at the bottom of the display. Draw a circle with your finger the item you want Google to search for. If you want to know more about a song playing in the background, long pressing the home gesture bar shows a Google search bar followed by a musical note inside a circle, and another circle with the Google Translate icon.

New Circle to Search features will show you your recent song searches and translate an entire page. | Image credit-PhoneArena

Press the musical note and quickly tap the history icon in the upper right that looks like a clock with an arrow curved around it. Tap on it and you'll see your "Recent Song Searches" page which shows the last few songs you've listened to, album cover art, the singer or the band who performed the song, the time you started listening to that tune, and a pill-shaped button that says "Show full history."

If you press on one of the images you will be taken to a page where you can hear the particular song and can even select the "Lyrics" tab to see the words to the song.

Instead of pressing the musical note on the search and shortcut bar after long pressing the home gesture bar, you can tap the circle containing the Google Translate icon. Tap the icon again and the full page will be translated. In the example I've embedded in this article, I translated one of my stories into Chinese (Yeah, you like it better that way. I get it. Yuck, yuck). Note that the translate feature won't work if you circle something on the screen first. But I can see this being very useful to me when translating a foreign source for a story since I'll be able to translate an entire page at one time.

Anyway, Google has given us two useful features in Circle to Search which should only serve to make the feature more popular than it is already.

$349

$799

$450 off (56%)

Mint Mobile now sells the Google Pixel 10 with a massive $450 discount. The promo is available on select color variants with 128GB of storage. You also get a 12-month unlimited data plan for $180 instead of $360.

Buy at Mint Mobile

$524

$999

$475 off (48%)

Grab the pro-grade, compact Pixel 10 Pro at Mint Mobile with a 12-month unlimited plan, and you can save a huge $475. The data plan comes with a discount, too: 50% off, to be exact.

Buy at Mint Mobile

$499

$1199

$700 off (58%)

The high-end Gemini AI-enhanced Pixel 10 Pro XL is now available with a mind-blowing discount. You can now save $700 on the phone, plus 50% off unlimited 12-month plans.

Buy at Mint Mobile

$1399

$1799

$400 off (22%)

The foldable Pixel 10 Pro Fold is another standout holiday offer. Right now, you can get the device for $400 off at Mint Mobile. On top of that, you save $180 on 12-month unlimited data plans.

Buy at Mint Mobile

View Full Bio

Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

Read the latest from Alan Friedman