Google Messages reportedly to get 'message editing' feature

Google continues to work hard to turn its own messaging service into one of the best, trying to ‘steal’ users from other much more popular ones. A new leak reveals that ‘message editing’ would be one of the features in development for Google Messages.

Popular messaging services like Telegram or WhatsApp already allow you to edit sent messages, and to be on the same level, Google Messages will have to offer something similar. Fortunately, that could happen sooner rather than later according to a new report.

Apparently, new flags added to the latest Google Messages beta version include direct references to message editing capabilities, which indicates that the company is developing it, but it is not yet fully implemented.

The source (TheSpAndroid blog) also explored the code of the latest Google Message apk version and found some lines related to the feature:

• bugle.enable_edit_ui
• bugle.load_edit_history
• bugle.process_outgoing_edits
• bugle.process_incoming_edits

The code in question refers to some components of the message editing system, including the editing UI, editing history, outgoing edits (for when you edit a message), and incoming edits (for when the other party edits a message).

According to the report, the flags and code are only present, but there is nothing functional implemented at the moment. So, we’ll probably have to wait at least a few weeks to see the new message editing feature in action.

The source suggests that the Google team would add the message editing support directly to the RCS standard instead of making it exclusive to its Messages service, just as they did with end-to-end encryption.

So, the Google Messages message editing feature joins other new ones (already implemented or in development) such as animated reactions, Ultra HDR support, text formatting, public profiles, among others.