Welcome to Google Messages

To add a fun and creative twist to your conversations, you can create and send short, personalized GIFs directly from your Google Messages chats.

Tap the camera to open a selfie camera. There's a 3 second countdown to record a short selfie gif. The recorded selfie gif is sent to the conversation.

Bring your voice messaging to life with Voice Moods. With 9 different emotions to choose from, your voice can sprinkle heart-eye emoji, fume with fireballs, and break out the party popper. The recipient can hear your words along with a visual effect that expresses how you feel at that moment. Thanks to user feedback, we increased the bitrate and sample rate to improve the overall audio quality of voice messages.

Tap the sound waves to open the recording menu. Tap the microphone, record a message, and select the laughing mood from the menu. The message is sent to the chat with a yellow to blue background and a laughing emoji that spins.

With Screen Effects, your messages come alive with vibrant animations that transform your words into visual displays that dazzle. Simply type specific messages like "It's snowing" or "I love you" and watch your screen erupt in a symphony of colors and motion. Together, with your friends, try to uncover 15 or more hidden Screen Effects prompt words.

Send the message "Love you!" There's an animation of a burst of pink and white hearts followed by a white bird that flies across the screen. The conversation returns to normal.

With new Custom Bubbles, you can customize the bubble color and backgrounds of your conversation and the person you communicate with. If you like, pick a different color for every chat. It’s no longer about blue or green. Now, you can differentiate your conversations and avoid accidental text in your family group chat about a weekend update meant for your friend.

Messages conversation scrolls through custom color options

Reaction Effects is an addition to your messaging experience that injects more life into your conversations. Picture this: Your friend texts you to let you know the 2 of you have reservations in that trendy new restaurant that everyone has been buzzing about. If you react to the message with a simple Thumbs up emoji, magic instantly unfolds as an animated trio of hands dances around the message bubble. The feature, designed to add a dynamic twist to your chats, embraces the power of expression with 10 of these popular emoji: .

Tap a message to open a reaction menu and select an emoji

Easily change your profile name and picture that accompanies your phone number. Your self-expression is important so you can now change how you appear across Google. This helps people recognize you, particularly in group chats.

Profile with a circular photo and name with edit buttons and a menu to change who can see your name and picture. Option at the bottom to continue with your profile with current selections.

• To draft messages, brainstorm ideas, plan events, or simply have a fun conversation, in the Google Messages app, you can chat with Gemini.
• To get suggestions to start or reply to a conversation or to rewrite a drafted message in different styles, use Magic Compose.
• Transform your favorite photos into reactions with the help of on-device Google AI with Photomoji.

Tap a message to open a reactions menu and create a custom reaction from your photos