Google Messages preps a whole new UI to go with new pinning limits

Right now, Google Messages is happy to let you keep track of your most important conversations by pinning them to the top of the app, almost to your heart’s content. But earlier this month, we spotted Google preparing to seriously rein that feature in, lowering your pinned chat limit to just six conversations, rather than the 20 you can pin now. Ahead of that change going live, we’ve spotted another tweak to pinning that feels like it goes a long way towards explaining where that new limit is coming from.

As we saw before, Messages has been getting ready to cap pinned conversations at six — though at least adding in the new ability to reorganize the order in which these chats show up. But instead of just listing those all up top, in the app’s version messages.android_20260814_00_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic update we’ve identified work towards giving pins a new look, focusing on the user:

When this new UI goes live, users can expect to find their six pinned conversations each displayed with a large contact icon. When a new message comes in for one of these chats, you’ll see the circle replaced by a square that previews message content.

Once again, you can reorganize where each of these appears, and once you settle on a spot they’ll stay put, not even moving when new texts come in.

Now that we can see it all in action, that limit of six pins feels like it makes a lot more sense — can you imagine how busy this would get with twenty?

None of this is active in Messages just yet, but Google’s clearly starting to close in on its complete vision for the change. But whether that happens tomorrow, next month, or somewhere even further out still remains to be seen. We’ll keep an eye out for any further tweaks to pinning in Messages, and loop you in on our finds.