Android 16 QPR3 Beta 2 quietly removes a useful Recents feature

Android 16 QPR3 Beta 2 is now rolling out, and it officially brings several bug fixes and stability improvements. However, the update is also rolling out with a subtle downgrade for the Recents menu that we first spotted back in the Android Canary 2512 update.

If you didn’t even realize Android’s Recents screen had powerful content-sharing tools built into it, you’re not alone. And that’s exactly what makes this change sting a little more. Google is downgrading a small but useful feature that many users probably never got the chance to fully appreciate.

The Recents screen, the one where you switch between apps, also quietly doubles as a productivity tool. Long-pressing on images inside supported apps lets you copy them, share them, open them in Lens, or save them locally.

Google is now stripping down all those features in the latest Android 16 QPR3 Beta 2 update. The rich set of long-press options is being replaced with a much more limited interface. Instead of being able to save an image locally or open it directly in Lens, you are now left with just two basic actions: copy or share. While you can still use Circle to Search to look up images, the convenience of saving or extracting images directly is gone.

With the reduced image interaction options now live in a public beta, it looks like Google is serious about pushing this change forward. However, there’s still a chance Google could tweak or restore some functionality before the stable release.