Search engine giant Google keeps an astounding amount of its users' personal data, and until recently, the tech giant helped users access some of these data through the Google Search app on Android. With the preinstalled search uses can find text messages, calendar events, email conversations, and contacts, among others, easily. But, recent reports claim that these personal search results in the Google app are now gone.
For a while, we have learned that searching for contacts has been broken; however, we were unaware that other personal search results are also unavailable in the autocomplete suggestions of Google. If you check in the Settings app, you will no longer have any other options aside from phone settings and apps, says Android Police. However, even though personal results do not seem to appear in the Google Settings' option, it seems that it is not completely gone yet.
Users can still find their contacts in regular search results. However, this time, they have to type the whole name to be able to see what they are searching for. Sometimes, Gmail and calendar events appear, but it looks as though we are now witnessing their slow depreciation. The personal results section that used to be in the rightmost tab under the search box in the Google app is totally gone too.
It used to store shortcuts to installed apps, personal information, recently opened websites, top contacts, events, conversations, and a lot more, though it has always been too concealed. A lot of the search terms though are still available through Google Assistant. Users can still ask it to interact with contacts through messaging apps, find emails from a specific sender, and even provide users with an overview of their activity on Google.
"The 'personal' tab of old is gone in recent Google app versions -> Personal results (like email conversations, calendar events, web history, etc.) in the Google app are all but gone
There is sometimes a "search gmail" option in the SERPs: https://t.co/I92Vb160kZ pic.twitter.com/SX21RZi4Zi — Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 16, 2019
Several users recently reported not being able to access the Google Assistant in their language. Others could not disable it, and at times a simple Google search with readily accessible results includes less friction than talking to the device and hoping that it will correctly pick up the spoken words and understand them. Plus, Google Assistant needs an Internet connection and requires users to be online.
While at the moment, we do not know the reason behind the disappearance of personal results, it is sad seeing the central search hub that many Android users have grown accustomed to is gone. Android Police speculates that it could be a way of the search engine giant pushing users to use Google Assistant.
