Fixing mistakes in messaging apps is part of the modern chat experience. The old process involves explaining what you meant or correcting a previous line of sent text that the other person can’t understand. But some apps now let you edit your sent messages if you’re fast enough. You don’t have to send a few additional replies to correct your errors.
Apple’s iMessage got support for text editing in iOS 16, and Meta brought it to WhatsApp earlier this year. Facebook Messenger will get it next, as part of the big end-to-end encryption upgrade Meta is giving its second most popular chat app.
Now, new findings in Google Messages code indicate that Google is also working on adding editing support to the default Android chat app.
It was TheSPAndroid that found code additions to the Google Messages app that indicate message editing support might be coming soon. According to the report, the code changes date back to the last week of November.
TheSPAndroid found code flags that show Google Messages will let you edit text messages on an Android device. It might also show an edit history, which is another feature available on competing platforms. Enabling these flags does nothing at the moment, however. The feature is still in the works at Google, and there’s no telling when it’ll be released to users.
Still, considering Google has been making a big deal about its Messages app, especially in its fight against Apple’s iMessage, it’s likely that support for editing messages will be rolling out sooner or later. After all, Google’s message to users is that its iMessage alternative is just as good as the iPhone.
Apple brought it to the iPhone in iOS 16 last year. It’s currently available on any device that runs iOS 16 or iPadOS 16 or later.
It’s unclear how message editing works for RCS messages, as this is not a feature that the GSMA standard supports. However, as TheSPAndroid notes, neither was end-to-end encryption, yet Google made it work. Also, the code the blog found seems to indicate that editing will work with RCS texts.
As for how the overall feature will work, Google will likely aim for an experience similar to what’s available on iMessage and WhatsApp. You’ll have a limited time to perform your edits, and the recipient might see a list of edits. That’s all for the sake of transparency and security of conversations. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
As for the minimum Android version needed to edit Google Messages, that’s also something Google must answer down the road when the feature rolls out.
