Google Messages now lets you view larger contact photos

A nice quality of life improvement for Google Messages lets you tap contact photos in conversation view.

In the main list, you can tap a contact’s profile picture to expand it. This is much larger than the version that appears in the Details view of Google Messages. In fact, this is the size of the avatar in Google Contacts – which unfortunately abandoned the edge-to-edge version last year – without having to open this application, and goes hand in hand with profiles.

This is joined by shortcuts at the bottom that allow you:

• Message: A bit repetitive and just opens the conversation
• Call: Dial immediately
• Info: Opens the Contact Details page for a direct shortcut without having to first open the conversation and then tap the app bar or overflow menu

This also works with group chats, although there is no call action in this case. Long press anywhere outside the circle to get the Pin, Archive, Delete, Block, and Mark as read/unread actions.

This ability to use and enlarge contact photos has been the subject of Google Messages beta testing since the beginning of June and is now being deployed more widely on the server side. However, it is not yet fully launched.

Learn more about Google Messages:

Thanks everyone!