Google Made the Perfect Search Feature for Its Messaging App

Searching for older messages is really annoying. Regardless of what app you are using to chat with your friends and family, searching for older conversations can be quite difficult. Although apps like WhatsApp and Telegram have a decent search feature, Apple’s iMessage is specifically terrible at letting you search through older messages.

And now, Google is releasing a new search experience for Android Messages that will easily beat that of WhatsApp or Telegram. It looks incredible.

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Android Messages now lets you search for older messages by contact. This means you can now select a contact and it will display messages from one-on-one conversations and group conversations with that specific contact. Moreover, Google will also display all the media, addresses, or links you have shared with each other.

The experience here isn’t anything massive, though it’s something many messaging apps neglect, and I feel like Google should get some credit here for finally building something that will help you find exactly what you are looking for from thousands of old messages without spending hours (*cough*iMessage*cough*).

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Conversation 5 comments

  • jdmp10

    24 September, 2018 - 3:07 pm

    <p>Google shows time and time again that search is the name of its game and no one has the scope and AI power that Google has amassed over these last 20 years. It's scary how capable these algorithms have gotten but it's also hard to deny how cool the results can be.</p>

  • aemond

    24 September, 2018 - 5:24 pm

    <p>Looks very similar to how the Outlook app handles things (at least on Android). Probably a bit better since you say it's perfect. ?</p>

  • Davor Radman

    24 September, 2018 - 11:26 pm

    <p>I don't understand still what is android messages? Is it IM or SMS? Seems to be regular SMS. Are we waiting for carriers to flip the switch or something?</p>

  • dontbe evil

    25 September, 2018 - 3:23 am

    <p>nothing new from google…as usual</p>

    • Tony Barrett

      25 September, 2018 - 5:41 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#327504">In reply to dontbe_evil:</a></em></blockquote><p>I hate to say it, but Google are one of the few megacorps driving real change in the way we use our devices. Apple certainly don't (rinse, recycle, repeat), Microsoft are stuck in a rut and don't see anything but the cloud and Facebook, well, FB are just pondscum who don't deserve the status they've somehow managed to attain.</p><p>Google are far from perfect, and every company has it's own agenda, but making things open source, and really trying with their apps to make them better – even if that means phasing out older attempts – means they *are* trying.</p>

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