How to Disable or Remove Search with Google Lens Feature in Chrome

Google Chrome 126.0 and later versions come with a new feature called “Lens Overlay” or “Search with Google Lens” that allows users to search for selected image or text available on the screen with Google Lens. This article will help you in enabling or disabling the new feature in Chrome web browser.

The new lens overlay feature can be accessed using 3 ways. Users can right-click on a web page and select “Search with Google Lens” option from the context menu.

As you can see in the above screenshot, the “Search with Google Lens” option has been added to the right-click context menu.

Users can also click inside the address bar or omnibox and a new chip “Google Lens” will appear inside the omnibox.

Users can also click on 3-dots menu button to access the main Chrome menu and a new “Search with Google Lens” option will appear inside the main menu as shown in following screenshot:

As soon as you select the “Search with Google Lens” option, Chrome will launch Lens overlay screen to select desired image or text. You can click to select, highlight or drag the cursor anywhere on the screen and Chrome will immediately search for the selected item using Google Lens.

According to Google, Lens overlay feature sends a screenshot of the current screen to Google servers to perform the search. The company mentions that the screenshot is not linked to any IDs or user accounts and the data about its contents is not logged on the servers.

If you are concerned about the privacy, you may disable or remove the new Lens overlay feature in your web browser easily.

Although Google has not provided any direct option to turn on/off Lens overlay feature in Chrome Settings, the company has provided a hidden secret preference/flag and a Registry policy to completely get rid of the feature.

If you also want to disable and remove Lens overlay or search with Google Lens feature in Chrome, following methods will help you:

METHOD 1: Disable Google Lens Overlay Feature Using Chrome Flags Page

Following steps will help you in disabling the Lens overlay feature using a secret preference/flag available on Chrome flags page:

STEP 1. Open Google Chrome web browser and type chrome://flags/ in address bar and press Enter. It’ll open the advanced configuration page.

STEP 2. Now type lens in the “Search flags” box.

Look for following option in the results:

STEP 3. To disable or remove the Google Lens overlay feature in Chrome, select Disabled from the drop-down box for the above mentioned option.

PS: If you want to force enable the lens overlay feature in your web browser, select Enabled option from the drop-down box.

STEP 4. Google Chrome will ask you to restart the browser. Click on “Relaunch now” button to restart Google Chrome.

That’s it. After restarting Chrome, you’ll no longer see search with Google Lens option anywhere in your web browser.

PS: In future, if you decide to restore the feature in Chrome, select “Default” option from the drop-down box for the above mentioned option and restart the browser.

METHOD 2: Disable or Remove Lens Overlay Feature Using Chrome Policy

Following method will help you in completely deactivating and removing Google Lens overlay feature in Chrome by implementing a Registry policy:

STEP 1: Press WIN+R key combination to launch RUN dialog box then type regedit and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

STEP 2: Now go to any of following keys:

If you want to disable the Lens overlay feature for all Windows users:

If you want to disable the Lens overlay feature for current user only:

STEP 3: Under Policies key, create a new key and set its name to Google

STEP 4: Again under Google key, create a new key and set its name to Chrome

So the final key path will be one of the following:

STEP 5: Now select Chrome key and in right-side pane, right-click and select “New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value” option. Set the new DWORD name as LensOverlaySettings

STEP 6: To completely disable Lens overlay feature, double-click on the new DWORD and change its value to 1

PS: If you want to enable the Lens overlay feature in your browser, leave the new DWORD value to 0

Now restart Chrome browser and the new Lens overlay feature will be turned on or off based on the DWORD value in your device.

PS: In future, if you decide to restore the default setting in Chrome, delete the above mentioned DWORD from Registry.

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