Google Messages for Android beta adds Gmail-style swipe gestures

Anyone familiar with Gmail, Google’s email service, will know that they can swipe left or right on their phone or tablet to perform various tasks. It can be customized in the app settings, and most users configure the ability to swipe an email left to delete and right to archive.

In Google Messages for Android, this feature is now available in beta and can be customized in the same way. In fact, the interface looks almost identical to that of Gmail, which makes it easy for users to understand and integrate.

Prior to this update, you could swipe items in your Messages inbox, but they were just archived and not deleted. In app build 20220721, visiting the Settings section will give you a new “swipe actions” option. There you will find three options – Archive, Delete and Shut Down, which means that nothing will happen if you swipe a message back and forth. This may help prevent accidental archiving and is a welcome addition, in my opinion.

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I wish we could swipe a message to the left to mark it as unread, because I often take a few days to respond to messages if I want to be more thoughtful with my response or reply at a more appropriate time. I think Messages still have ways to go, but in the meantime the swipe actions are great, and I think most users would be happy to add them.

attributed to him: 9to5Google