According to a new apk teardown of the Google Messages app v8.1.050, Google is preparing to introduce two new features – the ability to pin message threads to the top and the ability to star specific messages.
Apk teardowns often give us a peek into new and upcoming features that developers are working on before they rollout widely to all users. The latest update for Google Messages reveals two new features, as mentioned above.
The first is the ability to pin messages to the top of the chat list. According to the current code, the feature will allow users to pin up to three messages to the top. However, since the number that can pinned is a variable, Google could possibly change the number of pinned messages for the final release.
The second feature revealed in the code is the ability to star specific messages. This suggests that Google will introduce the ability to search for these starred messages later. It looks there will be a star badge to indicate starred messages too.
These features are currently in development, so it is unclear when Google will roll them out widely.