Google Messages Contact Photos: Finally, a Helpful Feature!

Thanks to a much-needed feature, Google Messages has finally put an end to a long-time user headache by letting you set custom contact photos. This welcome adjustment gives power back to users who want to look at their friends rather than generic Google profile graphics associated with their chatting app.

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Older Frustration: Google Profile Picture Overkill

Until now, Google Messages would always prefer a contact’s Google profile picture, even if a user had set a specific picture for that contact in their own phone’s contacts app. That inconsistency had sometimes resulted in confusion and a less personalized messaging experience.

The New solution: Choosing Photos

Now, Google has come up with a very simple but effective fix. In Google Messages, when viewing a contact’s details, users can now quickly alternate between:

Google Profile Picture: These are the default image inbound with contact Google information.
Contacts Picture: The image that a user has manually defined for the device in their phone contacts application.

Users have the option to select the image that more closely fits with their tastes, leading to a more natural and personal experience when messaging.

How to Switch Between Photos

Transitioning photos is super simple:

Step 1: Open a ConversationStep 2:
Find contact info: Tap the contact’s name or profile picture at the top of the conversation.
See photo choices: Click on the shown profile pic.
Switch swipe: swipe left or right to switch between Google Profile Picture and Contacts Picture.

Set as chat picture — After choosing the preferred photo, click on “Set as chat picture” to confirm the change.

Custom Contact Photos: The Benefits

Setting custom contact photos in Google Messages brings a number of important advantages:

Improved Personalization: Relatable photographs make it more convenient to recognize contacts instantly and adds personalization to the messaging experience.
Better organization: When photos are displayed consistently across apps, users can organize their contacts using the same images they see in all apps.
Enhanced User Control: This gives users more control to tailor their messaging experience based on their preferences.

Improving the user experience one step at a time

Such update will certainly help make Google Messages a more user-friendly and customizable experience. This is a minor but important update as it addresses a common pain point among users of the messaging app and shows that Google still cares about its user experience.

Future Considerations

Although such update is a great improvement, it can still make more improvement after all. For instance, giving users the ability to set contact photos directly from the app without switching apps would help.

Conclusion

Previewed last year, custom contact photos are now available in Google Messages. It will be taking an important step towards making its messaging app more relatable, by offering users greater control over how they can interact with their contacts. Since then, Google has endured to fine-tune its messaging platform and added the aforementioned features.