Google Messages Lets You Theme One Chat At A Time
Google Messages is rolling out custom chat themes for Android, letting users personalise individual RCS conversations with their own message bubble colours and wallpapers.
- Users can pick from colour presets, Google’s wallpaper collection or an image from their own gallery
- The theme is local: it appears only on the user’s own device and does not change how the conversation looks to the recipient, including in group chats
- Requires RCS messaging and the latest version of Google Messages
- Wallpaper categories include Animals, Landscapes and Space
- Bubbles adjust automatically to the wallpaper, with a Reset to default option
How To Turn On Google Messages Chat Themes
Users update through the Play Store, then enable RCS by opening Google Messages, tapping the profile icon, selecting Messages settings, going to RCS chats and switching on Turn on RCS chats. From there, opening a conversation and tapping the recipient or group name, or using the three-dot menu, gives a Chat theme option.
The feature was tested in beta in recent weeks and has now been announced for Android, with availability varying as the rollout continues.
Why It Only Changes Your Side
The one-sided design is the notable decision here.
A theme that travelled would be a message from the sender, and messages from senders are things platforms have to moderate, rate-limit and eventually monetise. Keeping it local makes it a preference instead, which needs no policy at all. It also means nothing about the conversation changes for the person who did not opt in, which is the quieter argument for doing it this way.
What It Signals About RCS
The feature requires RCS rather than SMS, and that requirement is the point.
Google has spent years trying to make RCS the default on Android, and features that only work inside it are how that gets done. For marketers watching RCS as a business messaging channel, each of these is another reason for a user to leave it switched on, which is the precondition for anything commercial happening there later.
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