Google Journeys lets you trawl through your search history in a way that could make it easier to find old info or discover new details.
If, like most of the world’s population, you use Google Chrome for work-related research, Google has introduced a new feature called Journeys which you may find useful.
Journeys lets users look back on their search history in an organised way so they don’t have to waste time remembering what they googled in the past.
As well as being a useful productivity tool for workers to save time and brainpower, it may also be a good tool for those of us who are always falling down internet rabbit holes and losing track of the things we encounter on the search engine.
In a nutshell, Journeys lets users see their past searches and nuggets of information they may have found along the way – all grouped together by topic. So, for example, if you have been researching a holiday to France over the past few weeks, the feature can gather a list of relevant sites you visited and help you quickly pick up where you left off.
It’s a fun feature, but it’s also a great productivity tool to save you time when you’re doing research at work. (We don’t endorse researching holidays to France while you’re at work, however.)
Journeys takes into account how much you’ve interacted with a site and looks to put the most relevant info front and centre. It also suggests alternative search options that might be of interest based on what other users have been googling. It can be useful for signposting and suggesting new research avenues if your inspiration has run dry.
The tech giant began testing Journeys last year before launching it in February, and the feature is currently available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese and Turkish. Users can access it via Google Chrome on desktop and it is not yet available on mobile devices.
How to use Google Journeys
The feature is very simple to use. To access it, simply open Google Chrome on your desktop and go to the options list in the top right corner of the menu bar.
Click on the History section and go to All History. Beside the list of websites you visited in chronological order, you should see a Journeys tab. Click on this and you will see a chronological history of your searches – but this time grouped together by topic for easy discoverability.
For example, if you googled ‘how to use Google Journeys’, it will show what websites you visited for info on this topic and gather them on a single card.
Underneath the results you clicked on, it will show suggestions for related searches. These alternative search suggestions open in a new tab when clicked on, which could be helpful for keeping track of existing searches as well as taking research in a different direction.
You can search through your history if you’re looking for a topic that you might have been researching a week ago.
Image: Google
You can switch between Journeys and the standard chronological history list depending on your preference. You can also delete specific results from Journeys or switch the tool off entirely.
Something to note is that Journeys currently only groups together history on a device and doesn’t save information to your Google account. This means that if you’re accessing multiple devices for work and personal use, for example, your entire search history won’t be available in one place on Journeys.
But Google has said that based on user feedback, it will start looking into the ability to access Journeys across multiple devices, like you would with bookmarks or passwords.
10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.
