Are you tired of jumping between browser tabs just to look up more information? What if you could find what you needed without leaving the current page and without getting your keyboard involved in this video, I'm going to show you how and so much more with Google Lens for Chrome.
Hello everyone. Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and to enjoy less stress.
Searching Images with Google Lens
And here I am browsing some home desktop setups, and I come across this picture. I say, “Ooh, that chair looks very interesting. What is it and where can I possibly get it?” Well, in this particular article, it doesn't tell me. It doesn't tell me below the picture. How am I going to find this out?
I'm going to take my cursor and I'm going to come up here to the URL address bar. When I click on it, no, I'm not going to change the URL. I'm going to come over here. Let me do that one more time. I'm going to click out of it, and then when I click into it, you can see that we have this Google Lens option.
When I select it, it's going to sprinkle some pixie dust on my screen here. You can see that my cursor has changed. I've got a little crosshair here, and if I click over certain images, you can see if I clicked over that chair. I'm going to do that. It's going to immediately bring up a search here on the right-hand side.
Oh, it's a Herman Miller chair! It's a specific type of chair, and it's even linking me directly to Amazon and some other sites where I can purchase this image.
Creating a Google Lens Shortcut
Now, you may not want to come up here to the browser bar each time that you want to use Google Lens. Well, the good news is that we can create a shortcut, but you're probably not going to see this little shortcut here in the top right-hand corner unless you do something else first.
Number one, if you don't see this in your address bar, and if you don't see this shortcut option, we want to come to our more options here within Chrome. Down below, you can see there is this "Search with Google Lens." This will always be available to you. If I select it, the exact same thing is going to happen. It's going to be ready for me to search for something.
So this time around, I'm going to click and drag. Maybe I want to know what type of tower this is. I'm going to click over that, and beautiful! It's brought up some great results. But here is where we want to take advantage of the "Pin" or "Unpin" to toolbar.
Now, I have it pinned at the moment; that's why you can see this little icon. I can always access it by just clicking it here, but if I unpin it, this is actually going to go away. I'm going to hit X, and now it's no longer there. It's still going to be available within my address bar, but I really like that pinned option.
So let's go ahead. We can just Google anything, maybe see what that monitor is like or if there's something similar to it. I'm going to come over here and select "Pin." Now this is always going to be available to me. But it gets better!
Let me scroll up to the top of this screen. This lamp really stood out to me as well. I’d like to get a lamp similar to this, but again, there's no description. How do I do it? I'm going to come over here and select "Search with Google Lens."
You can either point and click; sometimes it will identify. Here you can see it looks like it's trying to hover over this keyboard down below. It looks like it's trying to identify maybe this table. Sometimes it'll be able to identify some larger images, but in this case, we can simply click and drag.
If it's something that's more narrow or widescreen, I'm going to try and not get this little cactus in the frame here. I'm going to release it. And once again, perfect! It looks like that's the exact same lamp that I'm looking for. Now I'm just one click away from actually purchasing this lamp.
The other thing you want to keep in mind is that here you can reduce the size of this side panel. If you only want it to come up here in just a sliver on the right-hand side, you can do so. But you can drag this across and make it much larger if that's easier for your view.
Adding More to Your Search
But here's another tip that you're going to want to take advantage of. At the very top, you can see that it has already done this image search of what we selected over here, but I can add to my search.
So, for example, maybe I want to see if there's something like this in black. The image is still here within the search bar, but now on my keyboard, I'm going to type in the words "black." I'm going to hit enter, and it's going to come up with some comparable results.
Maybe it's not the exact same lamp; maybe they don't make that one in black or a darker shade. But now I can find something very similar. I can add other details here to the search bar.
Now, just before I show you my favorite Google Lens tip, I want to remind you that if you're looking for ways to simplify your day and get organized with Google, why not subscribe right here to the SimpliVity channel? Each and every week, I bring you new tips for people who use Google apps and Google-friendly products. So click subscribe below so you can take advantage of a more simple day.
Using Google Lens to Search Text
Now, with a feature like Google Lens, you may assume that this only applies to images or pictures that you find on the web, but actually, it doesn't stop there. In fact, I might say that this next feature might be the most impressive thing when it comes to Google Lens.
Once again, I'm going to click on Google Lens in this particular case, but you can see I'm not coming down here to where there is an image. I'm actually going to hover over some of this text, and you'll notice that the cursor changes. I still have that little AI bubble beside it, meaning that I'm in Google Lens mode.
But here, I can click and select any text I want, and we're going to get similar search results on the right-hand side. So here, maybe I want to learn more about this new Chrome feature that is coming. I'm going to select the text and let go. Immediately, it has done a Google search on those words and shows it to me here on the right-hand side.
Now, I can pick up other information. Right now, I can view other news articles and other updates related to this particular feature. Again, once I'm done here, I can hit X and I'm returned to my screen.
And maybe there's something else in here that I'm not quite familiar with. I can simply hit that Google Lens option. Let's just go over these three words here for a second and release. Remember, I'm not even having to say "Paste" or anything else. I just said "Bluetooth portable speaker," and it's going to bring up a number of results.
We can still refine this by images, by videos—anything else that we're looking for here, we can do that on the right-hand side without opening up a new tab. Whenever we are done, we can hit that X in the top right-hand corner.
So, if you want to save time the next time you are browsing in Chrome and don't want to open up another tab, be sure to take advantage of Google Lens. If you've got questions or new ways of using Google Lens, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching this video. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
