Google app rolling out ‘Search Tools’ time, verbatim filtering on Android

Abner Li | Apr 10 2020 - 8:49 am PT

From a homescreen widget to Assistant integration, the Google app is how the company wants you to access Search on Android. Yet, it’s always lacked one key feature compared to the mobile experience. The Google app beta yesterday finally added “Search Tools” and filters on Android.

Beyond high-level categories like News, Images, and Shopping, Google Search on the web has “Tools” to filter results by time and match. The first covers: Any time, Past hour, Past 24 hours, Past week, Past month, Past year, and Custom range (with a date picker). Meanwhile, you can also customize whether Google looks for “All results” or those “Verbatim” to your query.

Those filters are finally available on the Google app for Android after long being absent. Previously, users needing fine-tuned results had to perform lookups via Chrome. Now, you can scroll the carousel just underneath the Search bar to access “Search Tools” at the very end.

A bar drops down with the same options — save for “Custom range,” which is also missing on the mobile web — available. When filters are active, the toolbar will persist through results, with a clear button letting you return to default sorting.

Image lookups are slightly different due to this change. After selecting an image result, the Google logo and search field are always present, instead of being hidden. In fact, that top bar appears when scrolling regular/”All” web results.

As our Dylan Roussel spotted, these Search Tools rolled out to Android last night for those using the Google app beta (version 11.4). It’s not yet available on the stable (11.3) channel.