Yes, the Pixel Launcher search bar is now slightly taller

Google has slightly increased the height of the Pixel Launcher search bar and enlarged the Lens, voice search, and AI Mode icons in version 17.32 of the Google app. The change, now widely available on the stable channel, aims to modernize the search bar after Google reverted a previous Material 3 Expressive redesign last December.

If the search bar at the bottom of the Pixel Launcher looks ever so slightly different, it’s because Google made things a tiny bit taller. The pill-shaped search bar is now just a few pixels taller. This change also applies to the Google app’s Search homescreen widget. A slightly more obvious change is how Google increased the size of the Lens, voice search, and AI Mode or your set shortcut icons. This does make things look a bit more proportional. Old vs. new Zooming out, Google threw away the Material 3 Expressive redesign of the Pixel Launcher search bar last December. The Google app intentionally replaced unified device search https://9to5google.com/2025/12/16/pixel-launcher-search-google-app/ to essentially give AI Mode more prominence once you started searching. Besides unified search now only being available when you open the app drawer, Google reverting to the previous Search bar design did not look very modern. Today’s height adjustment does a tiny bit to help fix that, but unified device search is sorely missed. The search bar tweaks rolled out with version 17.32 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox of the Google app, which is now widely available in the stable channel. This is not an Android 17 change, with the above screenshots from Android 16. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. https://9to5mac.com/about/ affiliate our homepage http://9to5google.com/ for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Google on exclusive stories https://9to5google.com/feature/exclusive/ , reviews https://9to5google.com/guides/reviews/ , how-tos https://9to5google.com/guides/how-to/ , and subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/9to5google