Google Messages rolling out new contact Details page [U]

Abner Li | Feb 28 2024 - 3:00 pm PT

As we previously spotted, Google Messages is beginning to roll out a new in-app contacts page with a touch of Material You.

Update 2/28/24: Over the past two weeks, this new Google Messages contact page has become more widely available for beta users. Once available on your device, a prompt explains how you “Tap for photos, videos & links shared in this conversation.”

Besides hitting the contact photo/name in the app bar, you can also access it from a conversation’s overflow menu > Details. This has not yet launched for stable users.

Original 12/12/23: Previously, tapping the photo + name at the top of a conversation would open a full Google Contacts entry. This now opens an in-app page generated by Google Messages.

You get a centered profile picture, name, and number at the top. This is followed by circular shortcuts to place a phone or Meet call, open Google Contacts, and search.

The card for “Images” is straightforward and can take you to a full grid view, but be sure to play around with the animated Material 3 carousel. To our knowledge, Messages is the first Google app to implement this new component.

Instead of your 10 most recent images in the carousel being the same size, “items expand and shrink as they’re scrolled” with their shapes changing from rounded rectangles to squares and vertical pills. You can also see “Videos, links, & more” and “Starred” messages from here.

Then there’s “Videos, links & more” and “Starred.”

Next is a card with a shortcut to Notifications, “Only send SMS & MMS messages” toggle, and “Block & report” spam. Google will note End-to-end encryption status with the ability to “Verify encryption.” The final “people” section is useful in group conversations.

Google Messages’ new contacts page is not yet widely rolled out, but is beginning to appear for beta users. Meanwhile, Profiles have yet to see wide availability.