List of Google Easter eggs

As Google searches are case insensitive,[4] search terms are listed in lower case except where case sensitivity is explicitly referenced.

A Google web search for:

• "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away" resulted in the same tilted, scrolling style that the introductions to the original Star Wars movies were presented in.[5] This included the music,[5] which was muted but could be heard by clicking on or selecting the muted speaker icon on the page. However, this no longer worked as of June 28, 2017.[6]
• "anagram" shows "Did you mean: nag a ram".[7]
  • "define anagram" shows "Did you mean: nerd fame again".[8]
  • "anagram" and "define anagram" also work in other languages. For example, a Google ES search for "anagrama" shows Quizás quisiste decir: gama rana".[9]
• "askew" causes the results page to be tilted, leaning down, left to right.[10][11]
• "binary", "hex", "hexadecimal" and "octal" shows the number of search results in the respective numeral system.[12][13]
• "bletchley park" shows the name of the attraction being decoded in the Knowledge Graph.[14]
• "<blink>", "blink tag", or "blink html" includes samples of the blink element in the results.[15]
• "christmas", "hanukkah", and "kwanzaa" will show decorations next to the search bar for each respective holiday. The feature is only active during the month of December. Each year, new decorations are shown.[16][17]
  • Certain words related to these holidays, such as "candy cane" and "menorah" will also bring up these decorations.
• "conway's game of life" on a desktop browser generates a running configuration of the game to the right of the search results. The process can also be stopped and altered by the user.[18][2]
• "do a barrel roll" or "z or r twice" causes the result page to do a Star Fox-style barrel roll.[19][20][21]
• "drag queen", "gay pride", "homosexuality", "stonewall" and other LGBT related searches, at times of gay pride festival activity, cause the results page to have a rainbow themed header.[22][23]
• "festivus" shows an image of the Festivus pole beside the search results and the message "A festivus miracle!" next to the number of search results.[24][20][21]
• "google in 1998" on a desktop browser will generate a layout similar to the one Google used for its search engine in 1998.[25][21]
• “is google down” returns with "No".[26]
• "kerning" will add spaces between the letters of the word "kerning" in the search results. Kerning refers to the process of adjusting the space between letters in a word.[27]
  • "keming" will remove spaces between the letters of the word "keming".[27] This refers to improper kerning,[28] particularly when not enough space is used between letters, which can cause mistakes like "kerning" to be read as "keming".[29]
• "<marquee>", "marquee tag", or "marquee html" will apply the marquee element to the results count at the top of the results.[30][31]
• "pluto" describes Pluto as "Our favorite dwarf planet since 2006" in the Knowledge Graph.[32]
• "recursion" includes a "Did you mean: recursion" link back to the same page.[19]
• "sonic the hedgehog" and "green hill zone" will give a Knowledge Graph with Sonic waiting. Clicking on Sonic will make him jump; if clicked on 25 times, Sonic will transform into Super Sonic.[33]
• "superb owl" (a misspelling of Super Bowl) used to result in an infobox of Super Bowl LIII titled "Superb Owl" with an image of an owl wearing a crown.[34][35]
• "super mario bros" shows a Knowledge Graph for Super Mario Bros. that contains a flashing "?" block which generates a coin and 200 points when clicked. After 100 coins are collected, the "1UP" sound plays.[36]

A frame from Google's webdriver torso logo. See original animated image

• "text adventure" using most popular modern browsers (except Safari)[37] and opening the browser's developer console will trigger a text-based adventure game playable within the console.[38][39] Typing "no" when it asks if you want to play a game will print "the only winning move is not to play" in the console, referencing Wargames.
• "thanos" and "infinity gauntlet" display a Knowledge Graph with the Infinity Gauntlet on it. Clicking it will cause its fingers to snap, disintegrating half of the links and images on the page, as well as counting down the number of results to half. This is a reference to the 2018 film Avengers: Infinity War, in which the character Thanos destroyed half of all life in the universe with the Gauntlet on his hand by snapping his fingers. It was added in celebration of its sequel – Avengers: Endgame. Clicking the gauntlet again restores the previously disintegrated results' content.[40][41]
• "webdriver torso" turns the Google logo into moving colored blocks. This is a reference to an automated YouTube channel made by Google to test YouTube's performance. This does not work on mobile devices or when there is a Google Doodle on that day.[42][21]
• "wizard of oz" will display a pair of ruby slippers. Clicking on them will cause the page to spin in a tornado-like effect while an audio file of Judy Garland saying "there's no place like home" is heard. After the effect finishes, the page is seen in black and white only. If the tornado is clicked, an audio file from the movie when the tornado hits plays, the page spins again and returns to color.
• During FIFA World Cup 2010, search queries including "World Cup" and "FIFA" caused the "Goooo...gle" page indicator at the bottom of every result page to read "Goooo...al!" instead.[43]
• "wubba lubba dub dub" results in Google's Search asking "Did you mean: i am in great pain please help me".[44] When using Google Assistant, it responds with "Are you in pain? How can I help?", "Sorry, I don't speak Birdperson" or "Morty, let's get Schwifty", referencing the adult animated science fiction sitcom Rick and Morty.[45]
• "zerg rush" causes an army of Google Os to attack and destroy the search results, which can be defeated by clicking on them.[46] Once you are defeated (as victory is impossible[47]), the Os form two Gs (GG), meaning "Good Game".[48][21]

• The world of the Harry Potter spin-off film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them may be explored with Google Street View. Visit New York City in 1926 as brought to life in the film, as well as the real locations today. Fans can visit MACUSA (Magical Congress of the USA); Steen National Bank, where Newt first meets Jacob Kowalski; the underground speakeasy The Blind Pig; and the magical apartment of Tina and Queenie Goldstein, two of the film’s key characters.[81]
• Another 3D buildings Easter egg involves a scene involving a bridge jump from The Blues Brothers, which is recreated in Google Earth at the Tacony–Palmyra Bridge linking New Jersey and Philadelphia.[79]
• With the release of Google Earth 5, the Mars feature allowed users to speak to a primitive ELIZA clone on the planet, by searching for "Meliza".[82]
• On July 20, 2005, the 36th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon, Google debuted a version of Google Maps that included a small segment of the surface of the Moon. It is based entirely on NASA images and includes only a very limited region. Panning causes the map to tile. Zooming to the closest level used to show that the Moon was made of cheese.[83] The map also gives the locations of all Moon landings, and the Google Moon FAQ humorously mentions a connection to the Google Copernicus hoax, which Google claimed to be developing. Supposedly, by 2069, Google Local will support all lunar businesses and addresses.[83]
• In Street View, on Earls Court Rd, London, United Kingdom, a TARDIS from the science fiction series Doctor Who is on display. Street View allows one to enter the TARDIS where it is "Bigger on the Inside" and explore the set actually used in the show.[84][85]
• When navigating from Snowdon to Brecon Beacons, the user can choose to travel by dragon, which takes 21 minutes.[86]
• When navigating from Urquhart Castle to Fort Augustus, the user can choose to travel by the Loch Ness Monster, which takes 25 minutes.[87]
• When navigating from Magdalene College to President's Lodge Queens College, the user can choose to be punted, which takes 45 minutes.[88]
• Searching for public transportation from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace will offer the Royal Carriage option.[89]
• In celebration of the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, users could explore Bruce Wayne's residence and the Batcave.[90]
• For April Fools' Day 2015, in certain areas in Google Maps, there was a button which started a game of Pac-Man, controlled by arrow keys and using the roads as paths for Pac-Man to travel along.[91]
  • A similar feature was brought back for April Fools' Day 2017, allowing users to play a version of Ms. Pac-Man upon clicking the icon on the Google Maps webpage or mobile app.[92]
• In early test versions of Google Maps, searching for a route between locations separated by expanses of water (for example, Paris and New York City) provided road directions to the coast of the embarkation country (in this case, the west coast of France) before suggesting "Swim the Atlantic Ocean (3,500 miles)" or another ocean for a different distance.[79]
• While Google Maps' walking directions were in beta, requesting them from the start point of "The Shire" or "Rivendell" to the destination of "Mordor", the directions returned the warning: "Use caution – One does not simply walk into Mordor."[93]
• Searching for "R'lyeh" would take users to the coordinates of the sunken city. It was listed as a "Place of worship".[94]
• Visiting "Salford Lads' Club" with 3D buildings activated will show Morrissey of The Smiths at the entrance. The club was featured in the cover art of the Smiths' album The Queen Is Dead.[95]
• On Mario Day (March 10[96]) 2018, Google and Nintendo had partnered up to bring Mario into Google Maps mobile app worldwide for a week. A yellow icon with a question mark would show up at the bottom of the directions page, next to the start navigation button. Tapping on the icon would allow the user to have Mario and his kart as the navigation arrow. Tapping the icon 100 times would activate a 1-UP sound like in Nintendo's games.[97]
• A search for "Ericsson's Fault" directs to a point on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix street circuit. This is a reference to Romain Grosjean's post retirement radio message in which he said Marcus Ericsson had hit him, although he had crashed on his own during lap 40 of the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

• On Monday, November 29, 2010, Reddit user "harrichr" posted details of "how to make Google beatbox for you!" and soon after, Robert Quigley reported the discovery in an article on "geekosystem.com" (now The Mary Sue), stating that he was "Not sure if this falls in the category of Easter Egg or clever manipulation" and that although he had "No idea why", it transpired that using Google Translate to translate nonsense text of all consonants from German to German and clicking Listen would result in machine generated speech that sounded like beatboxing. As time went on, redditors and other interested parties experimented with translation combinations, posting their results on sites including Hacker News where reader "iamdave" is reported to have posted "a pretty comprehensive Google Translate beatboxing guide".[115][116] Three years later Time magazine published an article indicating that Google had acknowledged the existence of this feature with an Easter egg "Beatbox" tooltip when hovering over the "speaker icon" button after setting everything up to the aforementioned specification.[117]
• When using Google Translate to translate the German version of The Funniest Joke in the World ("Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!") to English, the result will be "[FATAL ERROR]".[118]

• Rolling over the I'm Feeling Lucky button causes the button text to spin, landing on a random phrase. Clicking on the button without text in the search bar will serve the corresponding web page.[119][120][121]

Google subpages

The teapot found at Google's 418 error page.

• When Ken Perlin visited Google February 2000, Sergey Brin asked him for a version of an interactive jumping heart character he'd created as a Java applet to be put on the Google site for Valentine's day. "www.google.com/heart" will redirect to an archived page which is a preservation of the old, but still functional, Google interface, complete with the Valentine's heart and a banner that states "This site is an old friend from Google’s past, kept in its original form. Enjoy!"[123]
• "www.google.com/humans.txt" is a simple plain text file serving to remind its readers that Google is created by a large team of humans using many technologies. It asks for interested readers to visit their careers page.[124]
• "www.google.com/killer-robots.txt" is a plain text file in robots.txt format.[125]
• "www.google.com/teapot" states, "418. I’m a teapot. The requested entity body is short and stout. Tip me over and pour me out." Clicking on the picture of the teapot or tilting the mobile device will result in an animation of it pouring tea into a teacup. The web page is a reference to the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol.[126]

Android Easter eggs

• Since the version 2.3 (Gingerbread) of Google's Android operating system an Easter egg has been hidden. The Easter egg can be accessed through the "Settings" application, in the "About phone" section, by repeatedly tapping the "Android version" section. The animation is different in every version of the OS.[127]
  • In 2.3 – 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) there is a painting of an Android next to a zombie gingerbread man, surrounded by zombies using cellphones.[128]
  • In 3.0 – 3.2.6 (Honeycomb) there is a blue honeybee. Below it, there is the text "REZZZZZZZ…" as a reference to Tron: Legacy.
  • In 4.0 – 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) there is pixel art of an ice cream sandwich android. Long-pressing it will result in many ice cream sandwich androids flying across the screen, dubbed the "nyan droid" as they are a tribute to Nyan Cat.
  • In 4.1 – 4.3.1 (Jelly Bean) a red jelly bean appears, which if pressed will show its face along with the OS version. If this jelly bean is then long-pressed, an interactive jelly bean mini-game will appear. This is where one can fling the jelly beans around.
  • In 4.4 (KitKat) a rotating letter "K" appears, which if continually tapped turns into the text "Android" in the styling of a KitKat logo. If the Android logo is then long-pressed or twisted with two fingers a tile interface, known as "a daydream" called "Dessert Case", loads with icons from all previous versions of Android. It appears to be a mock of the Windows Phone interface.[129]
  • In 5.x (Lollipop) and 6.x (Marshmallow), a colored circle appears (or a circle with a stylized M inside in Marshmallow). If continuously tapped, it will turn into a lollipop with the text lollipop inside (or the M changes into a marshmallow in 6.x). Tapping the circle changes the color. When long-pressed, a game of Flappy Bird starts with the Android mascot instead. In Marshmallow, tapping the plus sign adds extra players (up to five), which can be controlled by the user or other players.[130][131]
  • In 7.0 (Nougat), an "N" appears, which will enable another Easter egg if tapped. This Easter egg, titled "Android Neko" as a reference to the cat collecting mobile game Neko Atsume, can be accessed from the Quick Settings menu, and allows the user to create virtual treats, which will eventually attract kittens. The kittens can be viewed in a gallery-style screen. Additionally, long-pressing on the aforementioned "N" repeatedly will alternate between displaying the no symbol and the cat face emojis, respectively toggling the Easter egg on and off. "No" and "cat" is a mondegreen for "nougat".[132]
  • In 8.0 (Oreo), instead of the normal way of going to the Easter egg, heading to System > About Phone and tapping on the Android version repeatedly will launch the Easter egg. An orange circle appears, representing an "O" for Oreo. Long pressing on the center will open a blue screen representing a sea with an octopus floating around. The "O" in octopus represents Oreo while the eight legs on the octopus represent the version (8.0). The octopus can be moved by dragging the head around.[133]
  • In 9.0 (Pie), the Easter egg is found by going to System > About Phone > Android version and then tapping three times on the Android version on the next screen. A white, extended "P" will then appear, usually with concentric colored circles disappearing into the "P". Each time the Easter egg is invoked, it displays different colors. The animation can be pinched to zoom.[134]
    • On Google Pixel phones (that run 9.0 Pie), tapping the "P" icon several times will reveal a drawing app.[135]
  • In 10.0, the text "android 10" will appear, where each of the texts "android", "1", and "0" can be moved and rotated. Rotating "1" and merging with the digit "0" will result in the "android Q" text. In this state, tapping the "Q" several times will reveal a Nonogram game, where the resulting pictures are various icons of Android.[136]
• "Spells" may be "cast" on an Android phone by saying "Ok Google" followed by "Lumos" or "Nox" to turn the flashlight on and off, or "Silencio" to silence the ringer and notifications.[81]

• On YouTube for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and on YouTube TV, holding rewind (left on a gamepad thumbstick, left ← or J on a keyboard) for a few seconds while at the beginning of a video, will cause an animated image of a small dog to run across the video's progress bar.[145][146]
• On a video published by Numberphile on June 22, 2012, titled "Why do YouTube views freeze at 301?", the view count was frozen at 301,[147][31] referencing the bug in the now-changed subject behavior.[148]
• Adding "&wadsworth=1" to a video URL would apply "Wadsworth's constant", skipping the first 30% of the video.[149]
• Whilst viewing any video, typing "awesome" makes the progress bar and other player elements flash multicolored. Typing "awesome" again stops it.[150]
• YouTube's robots.txt file at "www.youtube.com/robots.txt" states that it was "Created in the distant future (the year 2000) after the robotic uprising of the mid 1990s which wiped out all humans."[151] This is an ostensible reference to the song "Robots" by Flight of the Conchords.[152]
• When the live-stream countdown reaches 24 hours before it is scheduled to start, a "Dawn of The Final Day -24 Hours Remain-" is shown along with a sound effect, referencing the video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
• On December 12, 2015, in celebration of the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the progress bar was changed in order to look like a Lightsaber. By signing up to a specially created page, users were able to follow the Light Side (which would change the progress bar to blue) or the Dark Side (which would change the progress bar to red). Account users had the option to return the effect to normal. Google disabled it for all users, February 1, 2016.[153] Along with this, mousing over the volume controls would play a lightsaber sound like it was turned on, and mousing off of it would play a power off sound.
• A Snake game could be activated in the Adobe Flash player by pressing a combination of arrow keys whilst videos were paused or playing. Once started, the snake could be controlled by further use of the arrow keys, directing it to "gobble up dots" to increase its size. If the snake hit the edges of the video window, the game ended.[154][155] The feature no longer works with the HTML5 video player.[156]
• When watching a video with "fidget spinner" in the title, the buffering icon would change into a spinning fidget spinner.[157]
  

  The Fidget Spinner that replaces the buffering icon
• The title of the video "Too Many Cooks", a surreal dark comedy short by Adult Swim, is yellow and in the Georgia font, mimicking the video's theme.

Lonely T-Rex

• If the user tries to browse when offline, a message is shown that they are not connected to the Internet. An illustration of the "Lonely T-Rex" dinosaur is shown at the top, designed by Sebastien Gabriel.[162][163][21] From September 2014, tapping the dinosaur (in Android or iOS) or pressing space or ↑ (on desktop) launches a browser game called "T-Rex Runner" in which the player controls a running dinosaur by tapping the screen (in Android or iOS) or pressing space, ↑ or ↓ (on desktop) to avoid obstacles, including cacti and, from June 2015, pterodactyls. In 2016, another feature was added to the game. When the player reaches 700 points the game begins to switch between day (white background, black lines and shapes) and night (black background, white lines and shapes). During September 2018, for Google Chrome's 10th birthday, a birthday cake causing the dinosaur to wear a birthday hat when collected was added.[164] Reaching a score of 900 will switch the color scheme back to day, and the switch back and forth will occur at further subsequent milestones.[163][165][166][167] The game is also available at the "chrome://network-error/-106" and "chrome://dino" pages.[168] The game's code is available on the Chromium site.[166]
• In the Apps splash page at "chrome://apps", a comment can be found under the body header that reads "A div to hold all the templates, and in the darkness bind them". This is a reference to the One Ring featured in The Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien.
• In the About Chrome page at "chrome://settings/help", clicking on the Chrome icon will cause it to spin.

"PRIDE" Easter Egg in Google Sheets being demonstrated

• Pressing Ctrl+⇧ Shift+Y in the Picasa desktop application will cause a teddy bear to appear on the screen. Note that the Picasa application no longer exists, as it was replaced by Google Photos.[170]
• In the Google I/O 2013 page, "instrument.github.io/google-io-2013/", one can click the letters "I" and "O" to input passwords.[171][172][173]
• In Google Glass, tapping Settings -> Device info -> View licenses, then tapping the touchpad 9 times, will show a Tap Meet Team option. Tapping again will show a photo of the Google Glass development team.[174]
• Any photograph with Christmas lights uploaded to Google+ will be turned into an animated GIF, showing sparkling lights.[142]
• On the Google Play Store, clicking the search button with a blank search field will search "unicorns".[175]
• In Google's iPhone and iPod touch search application, swiping downwards (past About) repeatedly in the Settings interface brings up a hidden menu item, called Bells and Whistles, allowing customization of colors, sounds and more within the app. However, this no longer works as of the newer app updates.[176]
• On Google Forms, entering the table flip emoticon "(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻" as the title will cause the interface to flip and replace the title with "┬─┬ノ(°_°ノ)"
• The model numbers for the first generation Chromecast unit and its power adapter read H2G2-42 and MST3K-US, respectively.[177]
• The password for Project Fi data only SIM cards is h2g2, another reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[178]
• In Sheets, as to celebrate LGBT pride, typing "PRIDE" in cells A1-E1 with each individual letter in each cell will make change the fill color of columns to make a rainbow.[179][180]

See also

• elgooG – a mirrored website of Google Search with horizontally flipped search results
• Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage – a hoax study that claimed to have correlated the IQs of 100,000 internet users with which web browsers they used, claiming that users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer had lower IQs than users of other browsers
• List of Easter eggs in Microsoft products
• List of Easter eggs in Tesla products
• Netflix April Fools' Day jokes

• About Google