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Finding the right sneakers, jacket, or sunglasses on Google can be tricky; either you cannot find the exact ones you want, or if you do, you get the wrong color or last year's model (the problem I most often face is finding the item in stores that will ship from Europe).

For such occasions, Google has created a new way to search on Android on iOS. The company calls it multisearch, and it enables you to search using an image and text at the same time — something that was never available on Google before.

The idea is to snap a photo of something (or use a photo on your phone) and then add an additional text query to it, in order to narrow down the results.

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Examples that Google provides include searching with a photo of a dress and adding "green" to get it in a different color, taking a photo of your dining set and adding the query "coffee table" to get a matching table, or snapping a photo of a plant and adding the query "care instructions." 

Just like this one, only green.Credit: Google

How to use multisearch on Google

To use multisearch, open the Google app on Android or iOS, and tap on the Lens camera icon. From there you can take a photo of something in real life or browse through one of your screenshots to select an image. Then, you can swipe up and tap the "+" symbol, and then "Add to your search" button to add the text query.

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While the multisearch feature isn't something I'd use daily, it certainly sounds like something that could be useful in specific cases; Google says it will presently work best for shopping searches.

Multisearch is available today as a beta feature, only in English, and only in the U.S. There's no word on when the feature might be expanded to other languages and territories.

TopicsGoogle