The Google Pixel 4 is equipped with a 2x optical zoom, but its digital zoom is only limited to 8x. Although the search engine giant restricted the digital zoom, this does not mean that getting a higher zoom is impossible. It appears that with a little amount of tweaking, you can enable 16x zoom in Google Pixel through the use of a mod.

One of the outstanding features of the Google Pixel 4 is its telephoto camera. The feature not only enables better shots in portrait mode and ~2X zoom but also allows users to utilize up to 8x zoom shots with less loss in quality courtesy of the Super Res Zoom algorithm. It seems that the search engine giant reduced the zoom to 8x because pushing further could reduce the quality of the shot, but it does not mean that zooming in further will produce useless photos.

XDA Senior Member cstark27, known for this work in modifying the Camera app of android devices, found a new way to raise the maximum zoom in the camera app of Google Pixel 4 as well as to use the telephoto camera at far higher zoom levels. This is through installing a modified app, which surprisingly, does not entail rooting the device if you only want to use a higher maximum limit for your Google Pixel 4’s camera app. But, if you're going to utilize the telephoto camera of Google Pixel 4 at zoom levels beyond 8x using the mod, you have to root the smartphone.

To enable the telephoto camera at higher zoom levels, you either need to flash the Magisk Module shared by cstark27 or enter this command:

adb shell su -c "setprop persist.camera.maxzoom 51"

If you have not allowed root access to the shell yet, grant access when the notification prompt pops up. Enter the command given by the XDA senior member, close the Camera PX, which is the modified Camera app on Google Pixel 4, or simply reboot the device. Set this property to control the maximum level of the telephoto camera that you wish to use.

Failing to do so and setting the telephoto zoom beyond 8x will put you on the main Camera app of the device.