How to Use Your Phone's Camera to Search

Searching with images is the wave of the future. Whether you're trying to identify something you'd like to buy or looking for information on what you see in the world around you, visual search apps can help. Armed with your phone and one of these apps, all you have to do is snap a photo and the app will try to identify the object or landmark and find information on it.

Ready to get started? Here are our favorite visual search apps.

Best App for Searching for Anything and Everything: Google Lens

With Google Lens, all you have to do is point and shoot at any object, and Google Lens does a pretty good job of telling you what it is. I took a picture of a flowering plant I'm growing on my terrace and found it's an Alyssum. The camera also recognized a church I visited in Oaxaca, Mexico and did a nice job of translating Spanish into English in real time of everything from signs to menus. You can also snap pictures of clothing and other objects and find similar items for purchase. It’s a great app if you want to learn about whatever you’re looking at.

You Google Lens is Google's reverse image search and is part the Google app and Google Photos app for iPhone users and through the Google Camera app and Google Photos app for Android. You can easily analyze photos or screenshots you've taken or analyze an image in real time.

Price: Free for iOS and Android

Best App for Searching for Hard-to-Find Items: Ebay

See the perfect pair of shoes, an old-fashioned truck or vase? You can use an image to find it, or something similar, on Ebay. Image search is an option in the standard search box, allowing you to snap a photo or select a photo from your camera roll to search. eBay will sift through over a billion items to find similar products – though just how similar will depend on the photo and the item. A search for a pair of shoes, for example, will give you shoes with a similar style, but may not necessarily be the same shoes.

Price: free for iOS and Android

Best app for all kinds of shopping: Amazon Shopping

If shopping is what you're interested in, Amazon Mobile makes it easy for you to find anything they stock using your smartphone camera. Just fire up your Amazon Shopping app and click on the visual search icon in the search bar. In "Scan," you can frame an item with your camera or scan the barcode. The app says "pantry, toys, or books," but I've found it works for other household items as well. In "Shop the Look," which focuses on clothing and home decor, you load an image you've already taken, and the app will scan for products and show you similar items. There are dots on any item the app has matched. Tapping on a dot, pulls up a list of matched items.

Price: Free for iOS and Android

This post was updated on 9/17/2022 with new app features.

[Image credits: woman with smartphone camera image via BigStockPhoto; Screenshots via Techlicious of Google, Ebay, and Amazon]

For the past 20+ years, Techlicious founder Suzanne Kantra has been exploring and writing about the world’s most exciting and important science and technology issues. Prior to Techlicious, Suzanne was the Technology Editor for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and the Senior Technology Editor for Popular Science. Suzanne has been featured on CNN, CBS, and NBC.