When searching, Google lets you categorize web results by Images, News, Shopping, etc. and offers two “Tools.” Google Search’s ability to filter by precise time, specifically setting your own “Custom range,” is currently broken in a rare bug.
Update: As of late Tuesday afternoon, this issue has been resolved.
On the desktop web, clicking “Tools,” just underneath the right of the search field, drops down “All results” and “Any time.” The latter has presets for the past hour, 24 hours, week, month, and year. There’s also “Custom range…”
Tapping that last option in the menu does bring up the intended UI to set “From” and “To” dates with a small calendar at the right. However, since last week, the entire page freezes immediately after the menu opens. The box cannot be closed and you can’t return to the search result page from this current view.
Navigating back does not bring you to the previous page, with users required to close the entire tab and start all over. The before: and after: filters continue to work as an alternative to the frozen UI.
This issue is widely reproducible on the desktop web, regardless of browser and operating system. We’ve tested Chrome, Safari, Mac, and Windows, while mobile Search is unaffected because it does not offer the “Custom range” filter.
As of yesterday, the Google Search team is aware of the issue and investigating. While the feature might not be widely used in day-to-day queries, it’s still odd for a bug of any severity to exist on Google Search, especially one that halts your lookup experience.
More about Google Search:
- Google Search now shows COVID-19 requirements, service options for local businesses
- Search testing new ‘Short videos’ Search carousel
- Google now lets you browse and virtually try on lipstick
- Grogu from ‘The Mandalorian’ is Google Search’s latest AR object
Dylan Roussel contributed to this article
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