Google Messages is getting two big changes: one you’ll love, one you’ll probably hate

Good news for Google Messages users

If you have been following what’s happening in the tech industry recently, you are probably aware that Samsung announced that it is going to discontinue its messaging application. It was later confirmed that this news only applies to the US, and the app will continue to function for some more time for the rest of the world. So, maybe not today, but definitely one day, the Samsung texting application will be gone forever for everyone, and you’ll have to switch to Google Messages.One of the many things you might miss in the Google texting app is the chat customization options that you get in Samsung Messages. Fortunately, it seems that Google is working on addressing this shortcoming.

It was recently reported that the tech giant is working on adding different customization options to the app. The mention of terms like “upload photo,” “your photo,” and “custom” was spotted in the code of one of the beta builds of the app. Now, in the messages.android_20260508_02_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic release, a receiver has reportedly been identified.

For reference, a receiver in Android development basically refers to a component that manages certain actions. The sighting of this in the internal code gives a strong indication that the tech giant is actively working on introducing customization options, and everything related that was spotted previously wasn’t just placeholder text or a UI idea.

Bad news for Google Messages users

New pairing option of Google Messages web. | Image by PhoneArena

One of the best things about the Google SMS app is that you can log in to it on any other device, like a PC, instantly. To do this, you need to open the Google Messages web app on your secondary device, where you will see a QR code. After that, you need to open the Google Messages app on your smartphone, go to Device Pairing, and then scan the QR code to instantly log in with your account on the secondary device.

However, the company has decided to remove this option. A Reddit user recently posted that upon trying to log in to Google Messages web, they are seeing a message that says, “QR code pairing is going away soon.” Now, the tech giant has taken the next step towards that goal, and the QR code scanner button that used to appear upon selecting the Device Pairing option is reportedly no longer available.

Now you need to use your Google account to sign in to secondary devices.