Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Messages may soon allow users to set profile photos for their contacts again.
- This comes after Messages added a profile detection feature that overrides locally set contact images in favor of photos from your contacts’ Google accounts.
Google recently introduced profile discovery in Google Messages. This feature displays your name and profile photo when a user adds you via your phone number. Unfortunately, this feature means everyone will see the photo from your Google account in the messaging app instead of their preferred image. Thankfully, it looks like Google will address this issue in the near future.
Ann APK disassembly It helps predict features that may be added to the service in the future based on the code in progress. However, such predicted features may not be publicly released.
After digging into the Google Messages app (version messages.android_20241018_01_RC00.phone_samsung_openbeta_dynamic), I discovered that the app allows you to choose between a contact’s Google Account photo and a local/custom image.
It turns out that you can enable this option and simply tap a contact’s profile picture and swipe to the side to switch between their Google Account photo and the locally stored photo. The latter image can be changed by tapping “Manage with Contacts app”. See the screenshot below courtesy of LinkofHyrule89 on X.
We’re glad to see Google addressing this shortcoming and providing users with a more customizable experience. This is especially useful if your contacts didn’t set up a picture for their Google Account to begin with, so they can provide a photo in the Messages app.
This isn’t the only flaw with Profile Discovery that Google appears to be planning to address with Messages. We recently discovered evidence that this app may give you more control over who can see your name and photo in the first place.
