Microsoft Edge is getting a new search experience that’s designed to let users perform a reverse image search in a sidebar. As spotted by Reddit user Leopeva64-2, the company is currently testing the sidebar search option with select Insiders on the Dev channel, but we noticed that it’s available in Edge Canary, too.
With the sidebar search, Microsoft Edge users will be able to run reverse image searches in a side panel without leaving the current tab. The search functionality is performed with Bing, and currently, the web browser isn’t offering an option to change the search engine to Google. It is similar to the “Search in sidebar” feature which was introduced to Edge stable back in January this year, and it allows users to search for information on the web.
To try out this feature, Edge Insiders will need to right-click on an image and then select the “Search in sidebar for image” option from the context menu. Search results will immediately show up in a dedicated pane on the right side of the page, showing web results and a list of related content. The feature also extracts text from the image directly and provides an option to copy it.
The reverse image search capability is only available in the most recent Microsoft Edge Canary and Dev versions at the time of writing. It appears to be a controlled rollout, as the feature isn’t available for everyone yet. This search experience will need to go through different Edge Insider channels before it becomes generally available in the production version of the web browser.
