No more reading hundreds of reviews: Play Store adds review search

Android users now have a new tool that saves time when choosing apps. Google has added a review search function to the Play Store. Now you don't have to scroll through hundreds of comments to find out if a game works on a specific smartphone or if an app has a certain feature.

The feature was spotted back in November last year, but it wasn't live at the time, and Google confirmed that search started working with a recent store update. Everything is done through the standard Play Store interface. Go to any app's page, tap the star rating at the top, then select 'View all reviews'. Alternatively, scroll down to the 'Reviews and ratings' section. Right under the AI-generated summary, a magnifying glass icon will appear.

After tapping the magnifying glass, the reviews section moves to the top of the screen, and you'll see a search bar. Type your query. For example, 'doesn't crash on Samsung' or 'has dark theme' and hit enter. The system only shows comments that contain those words. The new feature doesn't work perfectly — there's no search-as-you-type yet; results only appear after you submit the query. Another catch: a single-word query won't return any results; you need at least two or three words, and the search looks for exact matches, not meaning.

The feature is available in Play Store version 50.7.24-31 and newer. If you don't see the magnifying glass icon in reviews, try updating the store manually. After updating, the feature should appear, but sometimes you need to restart the store or wait a few hours. Previously, Play Store learned to flag apps that drain battery quickly.

The new feature filters out the noise and leaves only relevant comments. It's especially useful for apps with millions of installs, where there are thousands of reviews and you want to know how the app behaves on a specific processor. On the other hand, fake reviews and bots haven't gone away — the search will find them too, so take the results with a grain of caution.

What do you think? Does review search solve the information noise problem in the Play Store, or should Google have added something else? Share your thoughts in the comments.