Google is rolling out a simple but rather useful ability to “mark as unread” in Chat. This capability is already found on competing team messaging solutions, and doubles as a light reminder system.
On mobile, long pressing on a conversation will reveal a new “Mark as unread” option alongside Add reaction, Copy text, and Forward to inbox. It will also be available after tapping a contact’s name in the top-left corner. It appears between “Start a new chat” and “Pin” in the list below.
In the web client, you can highlight a conversation in the left sidebar and open the overflow menu, or hover over an individual message for the top-right control pill. This will presumably be available in both the standalone apps and integrated Gmail experience.
Marking a message as unread can help remind you to return to it later in Chat. In 1:1 and group DMs, you can mark a thread as unread starting from a particular message. To do this, you have to hover over the message and click the mark as unread icon.
Users are also able to do the reverse and “clear the badges on rooms with unread messages by marking them as read.” Compared to inbox forwarding, this solution is much more efficient. Slack already offers a similar unread feature, as well as “Remind me about this.”
The ability to mark unread in Google Chat is rolling out now and will be fully available over the coming weeks:
Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
More about Google Chat:
- Google’s rename of ‘Rooms’ in Chat and Gmail to ‘Spaces’ is now underway
- Google Chat gets built-in GIF search on the web to replace bot lookup
- Chat PWA rolling out straightforward dark theme
Author: Abner Li
Source: 9TO5Google
