I have certain contacts whose messages I need to make sure I never miss. There are many ways to do this, but my preferred option 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 open Messages first).
I only do this for very important contacts, otherwise the screen would fill up with bubbles, which is not very efficient.
Also: The best Android phones of the moment: tested and analyzed
The bubbles feature has been around for a while now, so your Android device should have it included in the Google Messages app. One thing to keep in mind is that bubbles are separate from Rich Communication Services (RCS), so just because you’ve enabled that feature doesn’t mean bubbles will automatically be added to conversations.
That being said, let’s bubble away.
How to put a bubble in a Google Messages conversation
What you will need: All you need is an Android device and a Messages conversation to create bubbles in. That’s it. Let’s make it happen.
The first thing you need to do is open Messages on your Android device.
Tap your profile picture in the top right corner, and in the resulting pop-up, tap “Message Settings.”
The “Message Settings” entry is located near the bottom of the drop-down menu.
Jack Wallen_ZDNET
On the Settings page, tap Bubbles. In the window that appears, tap Selected conversations can bubble up (either Selected only if you’re on a Samsung device). Once you’ve done that, exit Settings.
By default, Messages is set up so that nothing can appear.
By Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Here’s the trick. You have to wait until a message arrives on your device before you can bubble the conversation. When a message arrives (for a conversation you want to bubble), pull down the notification bar and tap History. Find and hold 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 the instructions below.
You must enable Bubbles for each conversation you want.
By Jack Wallen/ZDNET
If you’re using a Samsung Galaxy device, you won’t be able to easily access your notification history. Thankfully, Samsung has made it easy to add a conversation to the bubble right from the Notifications itself. So, when you see a notification from a Messages conversation, expand it and then tap the little square with the arrow pointing towards it in the bottom right corner and the conversation will be added as a bubble to your home screen.
The bubble icon is directly to the left of the bell.
By 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 screen 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 that when it comes back up, I know there’s a message I need to respond to.
A conversation bubble can be moved anywhere on the edge of the screen.
By Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Bubbles are a great way to make sure you never miss an important conversation on Android. I highly recommend using this feature to make sure you stay up to date with certain contacts.
Also: How to Enable Text Message Read Receipts on Android
There is one thing to keep in mind though: once a bubble is added to a conversation, it will always appear in a bubble. The only way to stop that behavior is to go to settings and disable the conversation bubble.