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Looking past the whole green bubble vs blue bubble debate that never seems to end, there are a lot of other frustrations when it comes to sending text messages. From OTP codes (which you should avoid using) to just general spam and everything in between, your Messages inbox can quickly end up looking like your Gmail inbox after just a couple of days.
While there have been third-party solutions that fix this problem, they don’t all work with RCS and leave you missing out on some pretty useful features. Google is finally remedying the problem though, as some users have reported seeing categories appear at the top of the Messages app (via Android Police). When the update arrives, you’ll be greeted with three different categories: All, Personal, and Business.
Google first rolled out this feature in a limited capacity to select users in India, and almost a year later, the ability to sort your conversations is finally coming to more users. What’s a bit disappointing to see are the categories that are available. Previously, we’ve seen versions of Google Messages with more “useful” categories available, including one for the aforementioned OTP codes. But we’d also like to see some type of implementation akin to what Apple’s Messages app offers as you can pick between “Known” and “Unknown” senders when filtering out the list.
Image Credit: Android Police
According to screenshots obtained by Android Police, it appears as though Google is implementing a couple of options once Categories arrives on your device. You’ll be able to enable the ability to sort messages, along with selecting the “Primary category view”. And circling back to those pesky OTP codes, a new toggle will be available that will automatically remove any of those messages within 24 hours of being received.
We’ve tried to see if the feature is available on a few of the phones we have here but have not had any luck so far. In all likelihood, this is a good ole’ staged rollout, meaning that Google is pushing a backend update in waves before it is finally available for everyone. If you’re excited for this update to arrive, make sure the Google Messages app is running the latest version from the Play Store, or you can head over to APKMirror and download the latest version there.
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