Group chats can be one of the best ways to communicate with friends and family, but also one of the worst, especially when you have a large number of people chatting in them. Some messaging apps already provide you with a way to mention people specifically, making it easier to call attention to certain things. However, Android has lacked this functionality in its core texting app Google Messages for a while. Thankfully, Google is working on that.
We’ve known that @mentions were coming in Google Messages for a bit now; or, at the least, that Google was working on them. However, a new report from 9to5 Google suggests that the feature is actually now rolling out to users, allowing you to mention people specifically within the app in group chats. It’s already been spotted by some users on Reddit, and appears to be tied to the most recent beta version of the Google Messages app.
A big upgrade for group chats on Android
While the introduction of mentions might not sound like a big deal, it’s actually a bit of a game-changer for Messages group chats, where getting one specific person’s attention can be difficult (especially if people keep the group chat muted).
Based on the earlier reports we’ve seen about this feature, too, it looks like Google will allow for a specific way to only show notifications for mentions when you have snoozed a group chat. That will prove especially handy if you rely on Google Messages for your group chats with friends and family, as you can silence the main part of the conversation and look through it when you want, while still getting notifications when people mention you specifically.
Considering the amount of messaging apps out there, it makes sense for Google to offer something similar to what these other services do directly in the primary texting app on Android. This feature also joins other new things that have been arriving in the messaging app, including support for Gemini’s Nano Banana image editing, as well as the ability to unsend messages on Android. Google is also working hard to end text message scams for users, though that’s less a feature for Google Messages and more an industry-wide initiative.
