Google Messages is my favorite texting app, but I don’t love everything about it. My inbox quickly fills up with promotional text messages, verification codes, delivery updates, and conversations. Even when I just want to find an important message, I have to scroll through numerous chats. After spending some time cleaning things up and turning off distractions, the app became easier to manage. These adjustments made the biggest difference. Related These hidden Google Messages effects finally made me enjoy texting again. Now I can’t go back to normal texting. Turn on spam protection in Messages. Keep unwanted messages away. Spam text messages are one of the main reasons my Google Messages inbox gets saturated. I regularly encounter messages from unknown numbers advertising products, promoting suspicious offers, or trying to get me to click on questionable links. Instead of deleting these messages every time, I let Google Messages’ built-in spam protection manage them. To enable it, open Google Messages, tap your profile photo, and go to Messages Settings > Protection & security > Enhanced protection. When enabled, Google Messages uses machine learning to identify suspicious messages and moves them to the Spam and Blocked folder. It also warns you about scams and potentially harmful links, helping you avoid interacting with messages that don’t seem trustworthy. I also help improve spam detection by reporting messages that escape the filter. I open the conversation and tap Block and report spam. This blocks the sender and removes the conversation from my main inbox. Automatically delete old OTP messages. I stopped them from taking over my inbox. One of the biggest annoyances in my inbox is one-time passwords (OTPs). I receive them when I log into accounts, confirm purchases, or complete online transactions. The problem is that these messages tend to pile up in my inbox, adding to the clutter. Instead of deleting them, I let Google Messages take care of it. To enable this feature, open Google Messages, tap your profile picture, and go to Messages Settings > Message Organization. Find the option Automatically delete OTP messages after 24 hours and activate it. Google Messages will automatically delete OTP messages after they have been in your inbox for 24 hours. Verification codes are usually temporary, and keeping dozens of expired codes doesn’t do much good. It’s an easy set-it-and-forget-it feature that keeps my inbox cleaner without having to go through old messages or delete them individually. I move the Gemini button out of my way. Make messages feel less cluttered. Google Messages is my default texting app for chatting with friends and family. I don’t need an AI assistant alongside my conversations, especially when I have the standalone Gemini app. The Gemini shortcut in Google Messages also takes up space on the home screen, so I prefer to hide it to keep the interface focused on my conversations. To hide it, open Google Messages, tap your profile photo, and go to Messages Settings > Gemini in Messages. Uncheck the Show Gemini Button option. Once disabled, the Gemini shortcut disappears from the main conversation screen, leaving me with a cleaner interface and fewer distractions when I open the app. I got rid of the chat bubbles that were getting in my way. Prevent messages from taking over the screen. Credit: Lucas Gouveia / Android Police Chat bubbles can be useful if you want to reply to messages without leaving the app you’re using, but I find floating icons distracting. They sit on top of whatever I’m doing, whether browsing the web, watching a video, or reading something, and can get in my way when I least expect it. I’d rather open Google Messages when I want to reply than have conversations floating over my screen all the time. I can turn them off without turning off message notifications. I open Google Messages, tap my profile photo, select Messages Settings, and tap Bubbles. From there, I choose Nothing Can Bubble. This prevents conversations from appearing as floating icons on top of other apps, but I still get regular message notifications in the notification shade. If you only want to turn off bubbles for certain conversations, choose Selected conversations can appear. That way you can keep the feature for important contacts and prevent other chats from being interrupted. I disabled the sounds of outgoing messages I silenced the alerts for unnecessary messages Credit: Lucas Gouveia / Android Police | Damir Khabirov / Shutterstock One last tweak was to remove the sounds that play when I send messages. I don’t need an audible confirmation every time I tap Send, especially when I look at the conversation. I went to the Messages settings and turned off Listen to sounds for incoming and outgoing messages. This eliminates the unnecessary sound that plays when I send messages. Related Why Google Messages is, hands down, the best way to text on Android Texting on Android at its best A few simple changes made messaging less annoying Google Messages has several useful features that helped me reduce clutter, avoid unwanted interruptions, and keep important conversations within reach. Some changes work in the background, such as automatic OTP removal and spam protection. Others, like muting loud conversations and turning off chat bubbles, give me more control over how I interact with messages.
