In this guide, we will show you the steps to turn off the Circle to Search feature on your Pixel and Samsung devices. The latest flagships from Samsung walked in the footsteps of Samsung and introduced a slew of AI features. One among which is the Circle to Search. As is evident by its name, you just need to circle the desired content on the screen and it will bring up the search the same across the web and bring up the results within seconds.
Google too has introduced this nifty feature into its latest flagships. While this feature in itself is quite handy, however, its implementation has raised quite a few eyebrows. For the unaware, you could trigger it by long pressing on the gesture navigation pill. However, this also means that you then can no longer hide this pill, and that has been the case with the latest One UI 6.1 update on Samsung [UPDATE: you can now hide it via the updated Good Lock module].
As far as Pixels are concerned, well, it never gave us the option to disable the pill in the first place [unless you have a rooted device]. However, this set of users are equally infuruated as well. This is because there have been numerous instances wherein users have unintentionally pressed the gesture bar for an additional second or two and in turn were greeted with this feature, which they had no intention of launching in the first place.
So if you are also getting troubled by this UI/UX flow, then your best bet is to turn off the Circle to Search feature on your Pixel/Samsung device. And in this guide, we will show you how to do just that. Follow along.
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How to Turn off Circle to Search Feature on Pixel and Samsung
On Pixel, the steps to disable Cirlce to Search vary depending on whether you are using three-button navigation or gesture navigation. We have listed the steps for both these methods, go through the one that is in sync with your requirements. Whereas, in the case of Samsung, there’s only one set of steps that you need to follow.
Disable Circle to Search on Pixel [Gesture Navigation]
- To begin with, head over to Settings > Display menu.
- Then go to Navigation Mode > Gesture Navigation.
- Now disable the toggle next to Hold handle to search.
Disable Circle to Search on Pixel [2/3 Button Navigation]
- Head over to Settings > System > Navigation Mode.
- Then tap on the settings icon next to 2 or 3-button navigation.
- Finally, disable the toggle next to Hold Home to Search.
Disable Circle to Search on Samsung
- Head over to Settings > Display > Navigation bar.
- Finally, disable the toggle next to Circle to Search.
That’s it. These were the steps to turn off the Circle to Search feature on Pixel/Samsung devices. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.
