Some Hidden Google Messages Features You Should Use

Google’s Messages app is an Android smartphone’s answer to Apple Messages, and it has become so ubiquitous on those devices, you might not give it a second thought. It’s pre-installed on most Android smartphones, and can be used as the default messaging app on any Android device.

Yet with the advent of Google’s RCS platform (Google’s version of iMessage), the Google/Android Messages app is only becoming more useful, especially since this seemingly simple texting app hides many of its best features in a nest of settings menus. If you use Google’s Messages app as your default texting app, here are a dozen ways to elevate your messaging experience.

Like the predictive responses offered up within Gmail, Google’s Suggestions feature gives you helpful suggestions for what to send depending on what’s in a text you just received. The Smart Reply feature will even show you quick responses right from the notification bar. Go to Settings > Suggestions in Chat and enable the auto-suggest features that you want to use.

You probably spend most of your time in the Messages app in a couple of conversations. The rest are all either one-time passwords alerts, timely updates, or spam. So why not pin your most frequently accessed conversations right at the top of the screen? To do so, tap and hold any conversation, then tap the Pin icon in the top toolbar to give that chat a place of honor at the top of the screen.

Google Messages has a basic spam protection feature built-in. It’s not a full-fledged spam blocker, but it will tell you when a message is suspected to be spam. You’ll find this feature in Settings > Spam Protection.

You can also manually mark a message as spam, and then block all new messages from the sender. Go to the chat that you want to block, tap the More button, and choose the “Details” option. Here, go to the “Block & report spam” section, and tap the “OK” button.

One-time passwords delivered via text are a common way to access your online accounts, from two-factor authentication alerts, to website login links. And as the name suggests, they are only used once. After that, they just clog up the Messages app.

Google has a clever solution to this problem. It already sorts OTPs in a different category, and you can enable a hidden option that will automatically delete OTPs that are older than 24 hours. Go to Settings > Messages Organization > Auto-Delete OTPs after 24 hours to enable it.