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Google Messages could soon remind you to reply to that text you forgot about

Hopefully, this will make the excuse of "Oh man, I totally forgot to respond to your text" a thing of the past.
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Published onSeptember 13, 2021

the google pixel 5a home screen showing a close up of the google search bar
Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority
TL;DR
  • Code within a beta version of Google Messages suggests a “Nudges” feature might be on the way.
  • Theoretically, this would work just like the Gmail feature which highlights important emails you haven’t responded to.
  • You can already set reminders about messages manually, but this would be automatic.

We’ve all done it: an important text message comes in and you read it, but you are too busy at the moment to respond. You set it aside, and then realize days later that you never responded. Meanwhile, the person you didn’t respond to is pretty upset about it.

According to an APK teardown from XDA-Developers, this could become a thing of the past for folks who use Google Messages. Code within the latest beta version of the app suggests Google might bring “Nudges” to the texting app. This feature would move conversations Google thinks you’ve forgotten about to the top of your conversation list.

See also: The best texting apps and SMS apps for Android

A feature of the same name already exists within Gmail. With that in mind, we expect the Messages version to work in much the same way. The APK teardown shows you’ll probably have two choices: highlight messages you may need to reply to and messages you may need to follow up on.

Since this is an unannounced feature within a beta version of the Google Messages app, it’s unclear if this will ever make it to launch. However, considering the usefulness of the feature as well as its pre-existence within Gmail, we think it’s very likely it will land eventually.

Do note that you can already set manual reminders within Google Messages. Since that’s something you need to remember to do, though, it’s not quite as useful as an automatic nudging system.