Google Messages adds new photo quality options and custom contact photos
Google Messages, the default messaging app for Android, is set to receive some exciting updates, including the ability to set custom profile pictures for contacts. Users will be able to switch between Google account display photos and images saved directly on their device. This update, discovered in recent code, hints at more personalized and user-friendly options for managing contact visuals.
Additionally, Google Messages is expanding support for dual-SIM RCS (Rich Communication Services), allowing users with multiple SIM cards to enjoy enhanced messaging features more easily. While customizing contact photos is a visual update, dual-SIM RCS support is a valuable feature for people who use more than one SIM on their devices.
Perhaps the most notable improvement is Google Messages’ new option for selecting image resolution before sending photos, inspired by WhatsApp’s similar feature. WhatsApp introduced this function earlier this year, enabling users to choose between Standard and HD photo quality. Google Messages aims to enhance this by offering both HD and HD+ options, giving users flexibility in balancing image quality with data usage.
- Standard (Optimized for Chat): A lower-quality version that conserves data and sends faster.
- HD+ (Original Quality): Sends the full-resolution image but may take longer to transmit and uses more data.
A small HD or HD+ icon will appear on the image’s bottom right, indicating the quality selected, visible to both sender and receiver. Though this feature hasn’t reached the Google Messages web client yet, a rollout across mobile and web versions is anticipated, similar to WhatsApp Web’s media quality feature.
These improvements reflect Google Messages’ efforts to enhance both customization and user control over data use and image quality, making it a more versatile option for Android users.