Android’s Photo Picker is finally getting a feature it desperately needed

A search function is baked into several different components across the Android OS, and soon that’s going to include the Photo Picker. This will doubtless make it much easier and way more convenient to find images you want to share with others. Chances are you’ve used the Photo Picker before, even if you aren’t aware that you have. The Photo Picker pops up as a system-level interface for your photos when you try to attach images to messages or emails.

Its intent is to give the user more control over what images are shared with apps that may need to request access to media on the device. This is as opposed to granting access to your entire media gallery. The issue with the Photo Picker, as it is currently, is that it can be a tedious process to find the photo or photos you want to share when you have lots of them stored on the device. It becomes time-consuming. A search function will change that.

Search is rolling out to the Photo Picker for several Android users

It’s unclear how widespread this feature rollout is. It definitely appears to be showing for some users, though. According to a report by Android Authority, “several” users have reached out and confirmed to them that the search function has appeared. This allows them to tap on the search bar in the Photo Picker and pinpoint the photo that they’re looking for.

I don’t seem to have this option on my Pixel 8. So it seems clear that it isn’t available for everyone yet. If Google is starting to roll this out to more and more users, it might not be long before it’s fully rolled out. It’s also worth noting that this new search function has popped up before. It initially showed up back in April. Now it just seems to be hitting more devices. Google is reportedly adding a date scrubber as well. This is pretty straightforward in terms of functionality. Images can be listed by date, and you can scroll to the desired date. Not too unlike the way it works in the Photos app.