Android’s Photo Picker is about to get the search feature you’ve always wanted

Google is finally testing a search bar in Android’s Photo Picker after announcing it last year

Apr 22, 2025 - 13:35

Android’s Photo Picker is about to get the search feature you’ve always wanted

Android’s native Photo Picker will soon let you search through your Google Photos library.
Although announced last year for a 2024 release, the search feature is finally being tested, hinting at an upcoming launch.
This long-awaited search bar will appear within the Photo Picker and should arrive via Google Play System Updates, not tied to Android 16.

If you’re like me, you probably have tens of thousands of photos backed up in Google Photos or a similar service. Finding specific memories can be tough, but the Google Photos app excels here thanks to its robust search feature — a hallmark of many Google products. However, this powerful search capability hasn’t been available when Browse your Google Photos library through Android’s native Photo Picker, though that’s finally set to change soon.

The Photo Picker is a feature that Google introduced in Android 13 that lets users choose specific images or videos to share with an app, as opposed to giving an app broad access to your phone’s gallery. While the Photo Picker is more private by design, it lacks a lot of the bells and whistles that built-in image pickers tend to have, such as sort options and a search bar.