Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The main Gemini app experience lets you attach wider file formats from local and online storage, but these options are missing from the overlay experience.
- Google could soon fix this file attachment inconsistency by adding the missing options to the Gemini overlay.
Google has made good progress in building up Gemini with good, useful features. One of my favorite use cases is using Gemini to crunch and summarize long documents or find answers to specific questions from within the file. To do this, I have to upload the file in Gemini. However, Google doesn’t allow for wider file uploads in the Gemini overlay yet, so you have to necessarily launch the Gemini app from its launcher icon for this rather useful functionality. Thankfully, it seems Google could fix this oversight soon by letting you attach more files from local and online storage, even from the Gemini overlay experience.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
We’ve previously spotted Google working on adding a new Plus button to the Gemini overlay, and Google has already rolled it out. This button lets users upload files to Gemini in order to add context to their search query.
However, in its current avatar, the Gemini overlay only shows the Camera and Gallery options, as you can see in the screenshots below:
These two options are fairly limited, as they only allow you to attach local media files.
With Google app v16.4.35 beta, we managed to activate features for wider file upload from your phone’s storage as well as from Google Drive. You can see the options in the screenshots below:
This upcoming change will bring the Gemini overlay at par with the functionality offered by the core Gemini experience (i.e., when you launch the Gemini experience through its launcher icon), as you can already attach more files from local storage or online storage from the main app. This way, you can launch Gemini through any means and still have the ability to upload more files, both locally and from Google Drive, saving you from scratching your head over a mismatched user experience.
This change in the Gemini app has not yet been rolled out. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.
