A Redditor has posted a photo of the Google Messages app that shows a new feature. If you’re sending a group chat, you can make sure that the message gets the attention you think it deserves by sending @mentions to anyone in the group. Typing “@” in the text field will show a list of people in your contacts list who are part of the message. The person you tag will receive a notification even if they have notifications muted. After choosing the user you want to tag, the name can be edited so that others don’t see the full name.
Only a few people have seen this new feature in the Google Messages app, and they are members of the app’s beta program. One wrote, “I have the Samsung open beta 20251103 rc00 and am seeing this. While I am a beta tester for the Messages app, for some reason I don’t have a beta release which is why I don’t see @mentions on my Pixel 6 Pro running Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3.3. The version of Google Messages that this has been spotted on is 20251103_00_RC00.
Typing the @ symbol will allow you to tag a person receiving a group RCS chat in Google Messages. | Image credit-aniruddhdodiya via Reddt
The point of sending an @mention is to make sure that the recipient of an important message sees the message. We should also point out that this feature is available for RCS chats only. Many Android users have been waiting for this feature to be available in Google Messages for some time with one typing on Reddit what many were thinking after seeing this news: “About time!” Other messaging apps offer their own @mentions feature. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram are such a trio.
If you have an Android phone, you need to use Google Messages to have the @mentions feature. If for some strange reason it’s not on your phone, you can head to the Google Play Store and install the app or simply tap on this link.
The person who is the subject of the @mention will know he has been tagged, he will see the “@” symbol on that chat in the messages inbox. And you need to know this as well in case you are tagged in a future Google Messages group chat.
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