Files by Google app is getting Smart Search and Google Drive’s new document scanner،
The “Files by Google” app could quite possibly be one of the most underrated and underused apps in the Android ecosystem, but that could be about to change with a new feature that has started to be released. deployed. The feature, called “Smart Search” was discovered in September, but is now available to users.
Smart Search will make finding data on your phone much easier, as this nifty feature uses intelligent machine learning to scan your documents and images, so you can find them using keywords instead of you rely only on file names. It also works with photos and screenshots, so you can easily find that funny meme you saved a few weeks ago without having to dig through your
camera roll.
This feature mirrors what the newly implemented document scanner does in the
Google Drive app. Smart Search can read text from your PDFs and images, so you can find important documents even if they have the most vague or unnecessary names. This is a huge lifesaver for those times when you can't remember what name you gave something, or when the file name doesn't give you any clue as to what's in it.
This was discovered by
@Nail_Sadykov and reported by
Android Font when a floating action button was spotted for document scanning. This button triggers the same machine learning scanner used in the Google Drive app, effectively linking the two apps.
Source – @Nail_Sadykov on X
Of course, no new feature is perfect, and Smart Search has some quirks that need to be ironed out. For example, the scanning process that indexes your files for search occurs from time to time, rather than in real time. This means that new files you download or add to your phone may not be searchable immediately. Additionally, Smart Search can't yet recognize locations on photos, even though the changelog says it can.
The new document scanner or Drive shortcut is now available to everyone in the latest version of the Files by Google app (v1.1737.587592893). This could mean it could be a staged server-side rollout, as many Google features tend to be. However, it looks like it's now rolling out more widely, so it should only be a matter of time before the feature appears on your Android.
