You can't bypass Google Messages' Profile Sharing pop-up, but here's how to turn it off

Lately, I’ve noticed threads on Reddit and Google’s support forums popping up with questions from users wondering why they’re being forced to use Profile Sharing in Google Messages. The feature, which was first announced last year, has slowly started making its way to users around the world. It essentially displays your selected profile image along with your name to people who find you by email or phone number.

While it’s a useful addition for some, others want no part of it. However, the problem most users encounter is the pop-up to enable Profile Sharing when they open the Google Messages app. There’s no way to get past the pop-up. So essentially, you can’t use the Messages app unless and until you tap the “Continue as …..” button. I’ve taken a screenshot of the pop-up for reference:

As you can see, there’s no button to close or skip the pop-up. Therefore, the only option you have is to continue. At first glance, this does seem highly invasive and forceful, but there’s a way to get yourself out of it.

While reading through comments and watching videos, I did come across some potential tricks to get rid of the pop-up. But I’ll be honest, none of them were even remotely practical or permanent. Nevertheless, for those who still want to know what they can do to prevent signing up for this, they can watch the short video shared below. For everyone else, I’d suggest skipping it.

In my experience, the easiest way to just get back to messaging as normal is to simply click that “Continue as ….” button. For those concerned about their privacy, make sure to tap on the drop-down option labeled “Show name and picture to”. Then select “No one”. This is the first step to make the feature less invasive of your privacy.

That said, once you have a couple of minutes to spare, then you can move on to the task of disabling the feature completely. I’m confident that you’ve already checked out the Google Messages settings to find a way to turn it off, but couldn’t find the option. Well, you’re right! There’s no option to turn off Profile Sharing from within Google Messages.

You’ll instead have to turn to the web. Simply head to the following link https://myaccount.google.com/profile/profile-discovery and turn off Discovery. In case you aren’t signed in to your Google account, you can do that first and click the link. I noticed that once the feature was toggled off, I was no longer able to visit the same link shared above. The page simply says “The setting you are looking for is not available for your account.”

To take things a step further, if you’re frustrated with the new Google Messages feature where profile discovery photos override the personal contact photos you’ve set, there’s a workaround. To override these photos, open the conversation of the contact in question, tap on their name at the top to access the details page, and then tap on their profile picture.

Here, you should have the option to choose between the profile photo from Google’s profile discovery or the saved contact photo you’ve personally set. This method allows you to maintain control over which image appears for each contact, despite the automatic settings from profile discovery.

I know this is by no means the perfect replacement for a simple toggle on/off button that Google SHOULD have included within the app itself. But it’s all we got right now.