Adamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR Google Messages is working to give you the option to open shared media immediately upon saving it.
The app may also change how it communicates location sharing, and possibly offer live updates.
Gemini could get a little more prominent, thanks to a larger floating button.
Google’s constantly updating its Android apps, but not every change is going to have a monumental impact. Far more often, developers are just trying something new to see what they can improve, tweaking app UIs with new menu listings, button placements, and screen layouts. Even those seemingly small changes are of interest to Android enthusiasts like us, and today we’ve collected a few of them that are in the works for Google Messages.
Today we’re looking at the app’s recent messages.android_20251121_00_RC01.phone.openbeta_dynamic build, and while none of the updates we’re highlighting here are currently user-facing, consider this a preview of what devs have been working on behind the scenes.
For starters, we’ve got a little tweak to what you’ll see when saving a media file that’s been shared in a conversation, along with what you’re able to do next. Right now, when saving media you’ll get a pop-up snackbar confirming the file’s been saved.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
But in addition to a simple confirmation, Messages is now preparing to add the option to directly open the file. Sure, you’re already looking at in in the conversation, but if you want to open it in another app (or just confirm that it’s actually saved), this should be a nice addition.
Here’s a quick look at that update in action:
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