What do you want to know
- A new direct reply feature has been spotted in Google Messages.
- Users can hold or swipe a message to reply to an individual message. Tapping on the preview would send users to the original text.
- The feature does not appear to be widely available, although some users have already received it on their devices.
Google Messages is a great app for Android users, especially thanks to RCS, which adds some cool features when texting between Android users. However, the app is not perfect and we would like to see several features in Google Message. Fortunately, Google isn’t done improving the app, and it looks like a handy feature is on the way that could help make conversations a little smoother.
During a teardown of the APK by 9to5Google, it was discovered that Google was apparently working on adding the ability to reply directly to individual messages. This would work like in other messaging apps, where a long press on a message received from another RCS user would present a new icon with the option to directly reply to that message. The option can also be triggered by swiping sideways with the undo option.
The feature sends the response as quoted text and presents it as such to the recipient. Tapping on the preview sends the user to the original text in case you need additional context.
Image 1 of 3
As 9to5 noted, this feature seems quite far in development, as the replies also appear in the Google Messages web app (they even show it working on the web). Some Reddit users have even started seeing the feature popping up on their devices, with one notably stating that they not using the Google Messages beta, suggesting a rollout could be on the way.
While this isn’t a new feature (even iMessage can do this), it brings Google Messages closer to a more comprehensive messaging app. It’s also one of the features I wanted to see come to Google Messages, so I’m pretty excited to see it seemingly making its way to users.
That said, no announcements have been made about such a feature being available, so there’s likely still some time to go before a full rollout.