You can soon swipe to see timestamps in Google Messages

Tapping each message to see when it arrived or was sent has been the Google way for a couple of years now, but soon there will be an easier way. It’s the way of swipes.

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A new feature was spotted in a Google Messages APK teardown that will allow you to see all message timestamps with a single swipe (via Android Authority). It’s a lot like how you view timestamps on iMessage or WhatsApp.

Swiping to see timestamps really transforms the experience

Currently, you need to tap each individual message in Google Messages to see when they were sent. It’s a time-consuming and frustrating affair, especially when you compare it to the easy way other apps have set up to view timestamps.

All it takes it a single swipe from the right side of the screen. It is a significantly less frictionless improvement for tracking when messages were sent and received. What’s really great about the new swipe gesture is it will show all your message timestamps with a single swipe. And it is surprising how long it has taken Google to finally come around and fix this.

Wait, has Google finally figured out messaging?

Messages first launched back in 2014, and received a major upgrade with the introduction of RCS in 2019. Rich Communicaiton Services is a next-generation messaging standard that is more secure, faster, and allows the transfer of more data than the old SMS standard. It’s like iMessage and SMS had a baby. Google Messages has been the poster-app for RCS since it launched, and is baked into every

Pixel device
and most Android phones.

But Google Messages still falls short in a few areas, and tapping each message to see its timestamp is one of them. This new feature looks to change that.

It is important to remember that not every feature spotted in an APK teardown actually makes it to a stable release. Google could simply be testing something here. However, it is a promising development and considering how Google has been aggressively improving its product lineup this fall, there’s a good chance we will see this feature soon.

Swiping to see timestamps seems like such a small issue, yet it transforms the user experience of

Google Messages
. It looks as if Google is determined to make Messages a real competitor to WhatsApp, Messenger, and Telegram. Even more significant, it looks as if Google has finally figured out its messaging strategy.