One UI 6.1.1 brings an upgraded Smart Select that's more like Circle to Search

Google’s Circle to Search feature has been praised left and right since its debut on the Galaxy S24 series earlier this year, as it speeds up something a lot of us do everyday: look up information on some on-screen text or image. It’s particularly useful for people like me who cover tech, since it lets us quickly select text or images to copy to the clipboard. But that aspect of Circle to Search—on-screen text and image selection—is something that Samsung users have long been able to do, without using Google Lens or third-party tools. Smart Select in One UI, for example, lets users draw on their screen with their finger or an S Pen to select an area and perform actions, such as sharing or saving the selection. And in the most recent One UI 6.1.1 update, Samsung has given Smart Select a bit of a glow up, with revamped animations, an updated toolbar UI, and the ability to tap on text or images.

One UI 6.1.1 is the latest version of Samsung’s mobile operating system. It’s based on Android 14 and made its debut on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 last week. Point updates typically don’t bring a lot of major new features, so we didn’t expect to find much in the update apart from the new Galaxy AI features that Samsung promised. However, we noticed that the “Smart Select” feature, which is available on S Pen devices through the Air Command menu or on other Galaxy devices through the “edge panels” overlay, was quietly updated in One UI 6.1.1.

The changes start with the new launch animation. When you launch Smart Select in One UI 6.1.1, a glowing bar fills up the edges of the screen. You can then draw over any part of the screen like before, but you can also now simply tap on a block of text or an image to allow Smart Select to automatically highlight it.

If the area you tap on isn’t recognized as a block of text or an image, then Smart Select will show a few buttons below the selection, including “add to note” (which clips the selected part of the screen as an image in Samsung Notes), “copy,” “share,” “save,” and an overflow menu with “pin” (to turn the selection into a floating overlay on top of other screens) and “edit” options.

If you instead tap on an area that’s recognized as a block of text, Smart Select will show an additional “extract text” button. This is actually highlighted in yellow because Smart Select now automatically extracts text from your selection, as opposed to before where you had to manually select the “extract text” option. When “extract text” is enabled, text from your selection is copied, shared, or saved instead of the entire clip. Text in other languages, interestingly, is automatically recognized when “extract text” is disabled; a “translate” button will automatically appear when the selection contains text in other languages, though actually translating the text requires downloading one of Samsung’s language packs.

Lastly, if you tap on an area that’s recognized as an image, a new “sketch to image” button appears. This opens the image in Samsung’s new Sketch to Image feature, which is available starting in One UI 6.1.1. With Sketch to Image, you can draw anything you want on top of an image, and Galaxy AI will use a generative AI model to create an image based on your sketch.

Overall, I find Smart Select to be vastly improved in One UI 6.1.1. The ability to quickly select text or images by simply tapping brings Smart Select more in line with Circle to Search. However, Smart Select has some features that aren’t available in Circle to Search, such as integration with Samsung Notes, Sketch to Image, pinning an image, and saving an image. It also had the ability to capture an area from a video as a GIF animation, but sadly, this seems to have been removed with the revamp in One UI 6.1.1. Still, if you frequently use Samsung’s first-party apps, especially Samsung Notes, you may find Smart Select to be more useful than or at least complementary to Circle to Search.

Thanks to Reddit user FragmentedChicken for the tip!