Google Lens does four jobs behind one button. It reads text, finds where a picture came from, names plants and objects, and translates signs and menus. Every one of those searches sends a picture to Google.
In 2026 Google also started saving those pictures. Lens images, voice searches and other media can now be kept in your account under a setting called Search Services History. Google says it may use saved media to improve its AI models and services, Lens included. Media picked for AI training is detached from your account and can be kept for up to four years, even after you delete your history.
The good news is that each of the four jobs has a private replacement, and some run entirely on your phone. There’s nothing to export. You only change which button you reach for.
Quick Comparison
| Alternative | Best for | Price (Oct 2026) | Privacy | Based in | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Live Text and Visual Look Up | Text, translation and look-ups on iPhone and Mac | Free with the device | Text recognition on the device | USA | No |
| TinEye | Reverse image search | Free for non-commercial use | Doesn’t keep your uploads | Canada | No |
| Pl@ntNet | Naming plants | Free | No ads, no resale of data | France | Partly |
| Seek by iNaturalist | Plants and animals, good for kids | Free | No account, data stays on the phone | USA (nonprofit) | Yes (MIT) |
| OCR (F-Droid) | Copying text from photos on Android | Free | Works offline after setup | Independent developer | Yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Bing Visual Search | Shopping and “what is this?” | Free | Goes to Microsoft instead of Google | USA | No |
Which One Should You Pick?
Think about what you actually pressed the Lens button for.
- To copy text from a photo, a screenshot or a sign, use Live Text on Apple devices or the OCR app on Android. Both work without sending the image anywhere.
- To find where a picture came from, for example to check whether a dating profile or a rental listing uses stolen photos, use TinEye.
- To name a plant in your garden or on a hike, use Pl@ntNet. For animals and insects too, or for a child’s phone, use Seek.
- To translate a menu or a sign, use Live Text’s Translate button on iPhone, or Offline Translator on Android.
- To ask “what is this and where can I buy it?”, Bing Visual Search is the closest match. It sends your photos to Microsoft, so keep it as an occasional fallback.
The Alternatives, One by One
Apple Live Text and Visual Look Up
Live Text works in the Camera app, in Photos, in screenshots and on images in Safari. Point the camera at text and tap the Live Text button, or touch and hold a word in a photo and drag to select it. From there you can tap Copy, Select All or Translate. Apple’s 2021 announcement says Live Text “uses on-device intelligence to recognize text in a photo.”
Visual Look Up is the “what is this?” half. Open a photo and look for a sparkle on the Info button. Tap it, then tap the icon that appears on the photo, such as a leaf for plants or an animal icon for pets. Apple’s results come from Siri Knowledge and the web, so this part does go online.
- Pick it because it’s already on your phone and text recognition stays on the device.
- Watch for this deal-breaker. It’s Apple only. On newer iPhones, visual intelligence also offers a search option that runs a Google image search and an ask option that sends the picture to ChatGPT. Skip both if your goal is to keep photos away from Google.
- It’s free on iPhone XS, iPhone XR or later with iOS 15 or later, on many iPads, and on Mac.
TinEye
TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You upload a picture or paste its address, and it shows you where that picture appears online. It’s the tool to use for spotting fake profiles, stolen product photos and recycled news images.
TinEye’s help pages say it never saves the images you upload and that nobody else can see them. Your upload is turned into a fingerprint, compared with its index, then deleted right after the search. It’s never added to TinEye’s database.
- Pick it because it needs no account, keeps nothing, and has an official extension for Firefox and Chrome-based browsers. Right-click any image and choose Search image on TinEye.
- A possible deal-breaker is that TinEye finds copies of a picture. It won’t tell you what’s in it. If it finds nothing, try Bing Visual Search next.
- It’s free for non-commercial use. Businesses buy search bundles through the paid TinEye API.
Pl@ntNet
Pl@ntNet is a plant identification app from French research institutes, including Cirad, INRAE, Inria and IRD. Take a photo of one part of the plant, such as a leaf, flower, fruit or bark, and it suggests species with reference pictures. If the match is weak, add another photo of a different part.
- Pick it because it’s free, has no ads, and its team says it doesn’t resell your data. It’s funded by public research money and donations.
- The deal-breaker is that it covers plants only. Observations you choose to share are added to the project’s database, so think twice before sharing photos taken in your own backyard.
- It runs on Android, iPhone and the web.
Seek by iNaturalist
Seek identifies plants and animals, insects included, through your camera in real time. It comes from iNaturalist, a US nonprofit.
- Pick it because it needs no account, the data you record doesn’t leave your device, and it works without an internet connection. iNaturalist designed it to be safe for children, and its code is open source.
- The deal-breaker is that it identifies living things only. Logging in to post sightings to iNaturalist is optional, and it shares them on the iNaturalist website.
- It’s free on Android and iPhone.
Copying Text on Android, Windows and Mac
Android has no built-in Live Text outside Google’s apps. The best replacement is an app on F-Droid simply called OCR. It’s built on the open-source Tesseract 5 engine, recognizes more than 120 languages, and does everything offline once you download the language data. Version 6.1 arrived in August 2026, and it’s licensed under Apache 2.0.
- On Windows 11, the Snipping Tool has a Text Actions button that makes the text in a screenshot selectable, plus Copy all text.
- On a Mac, Live Text works in Photos, Preview and Safari.
- To translate the text in a photo on Android, use Offline Translator. Our Google Translate alternatives page covers it.
Bing Visual Search and Kagi
When you need Lens’s broad “what is this?” answers, Bing Visual Search is the closest thing. Microsoft says it can identify objects, plants, animals and landmarks, translate or copy text from your camera, and find where to buy furniture or clothes. Choose it only for the occasional hard case, because your photos go to Microsoft.
Kagi, the paid search engine, has reverse image search too. Click the camera icon in Kagi Images to upload a file or paste an image address, then filter results by identical or similar matches. Kagi plans start at about $5/month (Oct 2026). Our search engine guide compares it with free options.
Circle to Search and Other Lens Shortcuts
Lens isn’t only an app. It hides behind shortcuts in other places too.
- Circle to Search on Android. On Pixel 6 and later and many other recent Android phones, including Samsung Galaxy models, touching and holding the home button or navigation handle lets you circle anything on screen and search it with Google. Google’s help page says history for Search services is still controlled by your activity settings.
- Browser right-click menus. Firefox adds Search Image with Google Lens to the right-click menu only when Google is your default search engine. Switch to another search engine and the item disappears.
- Google’s own apps. Lens buttons sit inside the Google app, Google Photos and Chrome. Replacing those apps removes the shortcuts with them. See our Chrome and Google Photos guides.
How to Switch From Google Lens
Lens doesn’t keep a library of your things, so there’s nothing to move. The job is to stop new pictures going to Google, clean up what’s already saved, and put the new tools where your thumb expects Lens.
Stop Google Saving Your Lens Pictures
- On a computer, open myactivity.google.com (My Google Activity) and sign in.
- Select Search Services History.
- Uncheck the Save Media box.
- Delete the media Google already saved, from the same Search Services History page. Turning the setting off doesn’t delete anything by itself.
For your other Google history settings, follow our guide to turning off Google tracking.
Remove the Shortcuts
- On Android, open Settings, search for Circle to Search, tap it and turn it off. On a Pixel, it’s under Settings → System. On a Samsung Galaxy, go to Settings → Display → Navigation bar, where Samsung turns it on by default.
- In your browser, change the default search engine away from Google. In Firefox, that also removes the Google Lens item from the right-click menu.
Set up the Replacements
- On iPhone, open Settings → General → Language & Region and turn on Live Text.
- On Android, install OCR from F-Droid and download the language data for the languages you read. Install Pl@ntNet or Seek from your app store.
- On your computer, add the official TinEye extension to your browser.