Samsung debuted One UI 8.5 with the Galaxy S26 series earlier this year. The update renamed the “S Finder” app to “Finder.” This also gave it a new place on the home screen and added smarter, semantic search. While we’re still waiting for One UI 8.5 stable to hit more Galaxy devices, details regarding the next major OS, One UI 9 (based on Android 17), are already greeting us. One among them has surfaced today. A leaked One UI 9 build suggests that Samsung may give users a choice to choose between Finder and Google as their home screen search service.
One UI 9 may offer a choice between Finder and Google for home screen search
Folks at Android Authority have spotted strings referring to this change in the One UI 9 leaked build. The strings indicate that users will get an option to choose their search service: Finder or Google on their Galaxy phones and tablets. They will also reportedly have the option to show their chosen search service on the home screen.
Additionally, the publication was able to spot some graphics associated with the strings. These shed more light on this new ability. These clearly show multiple configuration options that users will get to choose from. You can see the standard Finder-only option, which is already active in One UI 8.5. Besides that, soon you might be able to opt for either just Google Search on the home screen, both Google Search and Finder, or choose neither.
You can choose to have both, or neither
That said, it’s not clear what the “Google” home screen search service option will open. It’s speculated that it could work the same way as Pixel Launcher’s Google search bar. It could open the Google app for a quick search. But then, One UI 8.5 already has the default Google Search widget on the home screen.
This could be a launcher-level integration instead of being just a widget. While Finder is a great option for on-device semantic search, like finding photos, contacts, and files using natural language, the Google option could work as a gateway to web search.
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