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How 'bubbling' Android messages can simplify your text life
I have certain contacts whose messages I need to ensure I never miss. There are many ways of doing this but my go-to is to use Android’s text “bubble” feature, which creates a small, movable bubble for the conversation on my phone’s home screen. By doing this, I always know when an important contact has sent me a message and I can simply tap the bubble to open the conversation (without having to first open Messages).
I only do this for very important contacts; otherwise, my display would be awash with bubbles. That’s not very efficient.
Also: The best Android phones right now: Tested and reviewed
The bubbles feature has been around for some time, so your Android device should have it included with the Google Messages app. One thing to keep in mind is that bubbles is separate from Rich Communication Services (RCS), so just because you’ve enabled that feature doesn’t automatically add bubbling for conversations.
With that said, let’s bubble.
How to bubble a Google Messages conversation
What you’ll need: The only things you’ll need are an Android device and a Messages conversation to bubble. That’s it. Let’s make it happen.
The first thing to do is open Messages on your Android device.
Tap your profile photo in the upper right corner and, from the resulting popup, tap “Messages settings.”
The “Messages settings” entry is near the bottom of the drop-down.
Jack WallenZDNET
In the Settings page, tap Bubbles. In the resulting window, tap Selected conversations can bubble (or Selected only if you’re on a Samsung device). Once you’ve done that, back out of Settings.
By default, Messages is set such that nothing can bubble.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Here’s the trick. You have to wait until a message comes to your device before you can bubble the conversation. When a message does arrive (for a conversation you want to bubble), pull down the Notification Shade and tap History. Locate and long-press the message in question. On the resulting page, tap the On/Off slider for Bubble this conversation. If you’re on a Samsung device, see below for further instructions.
You must enable Bubbles for each conversation you want.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
If you’re using a Samsung Galaxy device, you won’t find easy access to your notification history. Fortunately, Samsung has made it easy to bubble a conversation directly from the Notification itself. So, when you see a notification for a Messages conversation, expand it, and then tap the small square with the arrow pointing to the bottom right corner and the conversation will be added as a bubble to your homescreen.
The bubble icon is directly to the left of the bell.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Tap the bubble to view the conversation and respond. Once you’re done, you can drag the bubble to the bottom of the display to dismiss it or you can leave it there for easy access. Personally, once I’ve responded, I drag the bubble off the screen so when it reappears, I know there’s a message I need to respond to.
A conversation bubble can be moved to any place at the edge of your display.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Bubbles are a great way to ensure you never miss an important conversation on Android. I highly recommend using this feature, so you can be certain to stay up to date with certain contacts.
Also: How to enable read receipts for texts on Android
One thing to keep in mind, however, is that once you bubble a conversation, it will always appear in a bubble. The only way to stop that behavior is to go into your settings and disable the conversation for bubbling.
