Google is once again trying to stake a claim on your desktop. This week, the company announced a new experimental Google app for Windows, available through Search Labs, that aims to make finding information on your computer as quick and seamless as searching the web.
At its core, the app is designed to eliminate the constant back-and-forth of switching windows and tabs. Press Alt + Spacebar, and up pops a search box that can query your local files, installed apps, Google Drive documents, and, naturally, the web. Google Lens is built in, letting you grab anything from your screen – text, images, even a paused video frame – and run it through search for translation, identification, or quick explanations. There’s also an AI Mode, which gives you deeper, generative answers with the ability to follow up conversationally, much like using Google’s AI search on the web.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it echoes some of what Microsoft has been building into Copilot on Windows, and what Apple users have long enjoyed with Spotlight. The difference here is the ecosystem. Copilot ties most naturally into OneDrive, Office apps, and Microsoft’s services. Google’s new app feels designed for people like me who live in Google Docs and Drive more than Office and OneDrive.
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I’ve had the chance to test the app on my own computer. Tapping Alt + Spacebar feels fast and natural, and the interface doesn’t get in the way. For quick Google Drive lookups or web queries, it’s genuinely convenient. But at least in its current experimental form, the local search is frustratingly limited. On my PC, it only surfaces files from my Downloads folder and a few stray files on the C: drive. Since the majority of my documents live in Dropbox via a separate storage drive, the app doesn’t find them at all.
That said, I’ve never been able to get Copilot to effectively search for files outside my C: drive, either. And even for files on the C: drive, the results are hit or miss, at best. So, if the Google App can make progress here first, that would be a win.
This isn’t Google’s first attempt at bridging local and web search. Two decades ago, the company launched Google Desktop, which indexed your computer files and brought them into a unified search box alongside web results. That product was discontinued in 2011, partly because cloud storage and better built-in OS search made it less relevant. The new Windows app feels like a spiritual successor – only now with AI, Lens, and Google’s cloud ecosystem layered on top.
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The experiment is U.S.-only for now, limited to English and personal Google accounts, but it signals a clear ambition: Google wants Google Search to live closer to your workflow, and not just in your browser. Whether it can compete head-to-head with Microsoft Copilot will depend on how quickly Google can expand local file support and reassure users about privacy. For Google Drive power users, though, this could be the start of a very useful alternative.
[Image credit: Screenshots via Techlicious, laptop mockup via Canva]
