Google Messages 2023 recap: Full makeover, more whimsy, some losses

Abner Li | Dec 22 2023 - 12:00 pm PT

This app is now officially just “Google Messages” after years of being called “Messages by Google.” It dovetails with how Google, in February, started referring to “RCS” directly after years of “Chat message” in the compose field. A bigger moment in 2023, along with 1 billion monthly active users, was Google enabling RCS by default and launching end-to-end encryption for group conversations.

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Messages also started directly noting whether a conversation was happening over RCS on the homescreen, along with the new read receipt indicators.

On the design front, the homescreen revamp that dropped the navigation drawer is quite significant but is something Google didn’t acknowledge during the latest round of updates. There’s a prominent “G” logo in the top-left corner, too. To me, the app feels much more modern and cleaner – though the camera shortcut remains weird – by placing all sections in the avatar menu.

Meanwhile, Google is rolling out a new compose field that also went unannounced with the big launch this month. It’s not yet widely available but results in a heavier UI, while it doesn’t make that much sense to left-align the text field when your sent messages appear on the right side. That said, it’s not an easy design problem for anyone. The gallery was similarly redesigned early in the year.

Google is also elevating voice messages with a dedicated UI and Voice Moods, as well as noise cancellation, while Wear OS support was introduced a few months ago. Google is testing a new conversation picker and forwarding UI, but this is not yet widely rolled out.

A major usability upgrade was Google Account sign-in to replace QR code pairing. Picking an emoji is much faster than scanning, but at the end of the day, it’s still a phone-centric approach. My personal hope is this will lead to Messages on Android tablets becoming a native app instead of a web view/wrapper. Back at I/O, Magic Compose for suggested responses was an early generative AI highlight.

A new in-app contacts page is rolling out as the Profiles feature lets you associate a name and photo with your phone number. These Profile images will notably replace any contact photos that you’ve manually set.

In terms of notable regressions in 2023, Messages organization was removed with the homescreen redesign, while reminders and Google Photos uploading appear to be gone. Google also removed Top contacts when starting new conversations.

Finally, there are all the new expressive features in 2023: