Google’s Circle to Search is a powerful feature that lets users quickly search anything on their mobile screen by simply circling, highlighting, or tapping. This feature was initially limited to a few Pixel and Samsung devices, but it’s now possible to enable this feature on almost any Android device running Android 9 through Android 15 with a few workarounds.
How to enable it?
- Install the latest version of Google, enable auto-start, and disable background restrictions.
- Install Google Assistant and Gemini from the Play Store.
- Set Google as the default assistant app. Also, we should enable the given permission from the Google App Info
- AutoStart
- Floating Window
- Install and launch the MiCTS. It’s available on the following GitHub account
- https://github.com/parallelcc/MiCTS/releases (Under the assets for the given version)
- https://github.com/parallelcc/MiCTS/releases/download/v2.4/MiCTS_2.4.apk (Direct link for the MiCTS version 2.4)
- Also, we should enable the given permission from the App Info page
- AutoStart
- Floating Window
- Download Vivid N.G. from the Google Play Store. It might cost about 2.39 US dollars.
- Open the Vivid N.G. app and grant all the permissions it requests, such as accessibility and others.
- Go to the gesture menu and look for the Bottom Center. Enable it and on the Gestures, choose Hold action. Then go to the App and select the MiCTS from the App Picker.
- Now, if you long-press on the bottom area defined by the Vivid, then Circle to Search will be activated.
- NOTE: It will not work if the Vivid app is closed. It will again ask for the permission when opened. So lock the Vivid app in the background. This will prevent the application from closing accidentally.
The following screenshot might be useful for enabling the AutoStart and Floating window permissions:
