- Google again lets users set names and profile photos for their contacts in Google Messages
- The app moved to a social network style profile system in 2024
- Profile sharing is apparently still available
Google has announced that users of its Messages app will once again be able to set names and photos for their contacts after the app moves to a social media profile-style system in 2024.
As 9to5Google notes, profile sharing (originally named profile discovery) rolled out to Messages users starting in March 2024, replacing the names and contact pictures assigned to a user’s contacts with information from accounts Google their contacts.
Following this, Google implemented the “customize how you are seen” page in Messages, a go-to process that leaned even more heavily on a social platform’s self-presentation style.
Although the decision to make profile sharing the only way to set contact names and photos has been reversed, users can still choose to use their contacts’ preferred information – there is no indication that profile sharing was completely abandoned.
Customizing a contact’s information is, as you would expect, quite simple: just tap a contact’s name or photo in chat, opening a page with the contact’s details. user, which can then be updated manually.
The addition of profile sharing was initially announced in November 2023 and can be seen as part of Google’s efforts to introduce a functionally similar rival to Apple’s iMessage.
As we previously reported, the gap between the two platforms is starting to narrow with Apple’s adoption of RCS – Rich Communication Services – a standard that allows easy media sharing and group chats similar to its own iMessage standard.
Google has long championed RCS as a forward-thinking and collaborative standard, and has even publicly celebrated its rival’s decision to implement RCS on iPhone.
Additionally, at the end of 2024, many new messaging tools were added to Google’s default messaging app, designed to protect users from scammers and spammers, such as warnings about dangerous links, filters blur for unsavory images and better contact verification.
It’s clear that Google wants to make Messages the messaging app of choice for Android users – it looks like it will allow people to use photos of their friends and family as their profile pictures.
