Do you find it hard to find a contact or locate an application from a list of hundreds of items on an Android phone? Or do you find it stressful to search for an item by typing in its title while on the go?

Gesture Search from Google Labs lets you search your Android-powered device by drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen. It allows you to quickly find a contact, a bookmark, an application, or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, all in one place. It is fast and fun to use.

Gesture Search currently recognizes the English alphabet and requires Android 1.6 or above.

Gesture Search Screenshots





Frequently Asked Questions

* How do I get started?

Just write on the touch screen the title of the item you are looking for, e.g., a person's name or the name of a song. You don't need to write the entire word and the search results are continuously updated as you add each letter. Once the target item is shown in the list, just click on the item to bring it up.

* Can I delete a letter or a query?

Yes. You can delete a letter or wipe of the entire query by drawing a horizontal line in the bottom query display area: drawing from right to left deletes the last letter of the query and drawing from left to right to wipe off the entire query.

* Can I make a call directly from Gesture Search?

Yes. When you click on a contact item in the search result list, it brings up the detailed view of the contact. To directly make a call, click on the green phone icon on the left of the item. This will skip the detailed view and dial the displayed phone number.

* Can I scroll the search result list?

Yes. You can just scroll the list as usual: sliding or flipping the list. Gesture Search automatically discerns if you are drawing a letter or scrolling the list.

* Can I search with multiple words or prefixes?

Yes. You can add a space by drawing a horizontal line on top the search result list. This appends a space in the search query.

* Does Gesture Search only recognize lower or upper-case letters?

Gesture Search recognizes both.

* Can I select what types of contents I want to have in the search result list?

Gesture Search currently indexes contacts, bookmarks, applications and music tracks. You can exclude certain types of contents in Settings.

* Do I have to write a letter in one stroke?

No. You can write a letter in more than one strokes. Gesture Search uses a timeout to delimit whether a stroke is part of the current or the next letter. Use the menu item Settings to set the Writing Speed property. You can specify Slow, Medium or Fast to indicate how long you want Gesture Search to wait for the next stroke of the same letter.

* I can't find the item I am looking for, can you help?

For now, Gesture Search only indexes contacts, bookmarks, applications and music tracks in the English alphabet. We don't yet index other types of data in other languages. If this is not the case, try to refresh the index by the Refresh Index menu and then search again.



Download Gesture Search free for Your Android phone