It seems Google is now in the process of rolling out a new “Personal” tab for Google Search. With the idea being that Search results can be further filtered to show only content that is relative to the user’s account. This includes images and emails that are pulled from the searcher’s Google Photos and Gmail accounts, among others.
Of course, Google Search has always provided some results that are linked to the user’s account and these typically show up as part of the main Search results feed and usually with a tagline along the lines of ‘do you find this helpful.’ However the difference here is what seems to be the new inclusion of a dedicated Personal tab which completely omits all results, except for those that are linked to your personal accounts. In the most basic of terms, this Personal tab acts as the user’s very own Google Search.
It is unclear when this feature first went live, although it does only seem to have been spotted and reported on within the last 24 hours. Since then, it has started to become noticed more and seems to be largely active for the most part. Although it is still unclear as to how widespread the feature is, and whether everyone is definitely seeing it at the moment. What is clear, is that for those who are seeing the feature, it works for Search results performed on both the desktop and mobile versions of Chrome. Likewise, at the moment it only seems to be accessible via Chrome. So for instance, the feature does not seem to be live for searches performed via the Google app or any of the non-Chrome Google search widgets. For those who are interested in checking out their very own Google Search, the new Personal tab is currently a little hidden from view. To find and filter the results in this way, you will need to click on the “More” tab and then select the “Personal” option which will be listed in the drop down menu. Once clicked, only the results from your Google-associated accounts, for the search term you searched for, will show up. As shown below.