Google Messages is getting a small but genuinely meaningful feature that can help with cleanups and accidental inputs. The app now has a proper trash folder to let you get back to conversations you recently got rid of.
Why this is a handy new feature
The company’s official support documentation revealed the new Trash folder that lets users recover deleted conversations within 30 days. This adds a buffer that should help cut down on accidental message loss. But after this month-long window ends, the conversation is permanently deleted.
Though, the feature is still very useful. Instead of a deleted conversation vanishing for good right away, it goes into Trash first, similar to Google Drive‘s Bin folder. From there, users can restore individual chats, restore all of the deleted chats, or permanently wipe selected conversations. Google says that each trashed conversation shows an individual countdown indicating how many days remain before they are truly removed.
There’s more than one way to send chats to Trash
Google built this feature to be easily accessible. Users can move conversations into Trash either by setting up a swipe action or by touching and holding one or more chats and tapping the Trash icon. To enable the swipe shortcut, users need to head into Messages settings, open Swipe actions, and assign Trash to either the left of right swipes.
There is also one small catch.
If you receive a new message in a conversation that is currently in Trash, that incoming message can appear as a new conversation in your inbox. So Trash is not necessarily a holding area for chat threads you are trying to avoid.