Yes, Google Messages made the text field bigger

Back in December, Google Messages rolled out the latest text field redesign and a new version makes it ever so slightly bigger.

As seen below, the pill-shaped field is now a bit taller with more padding above and below the line of buttons. It fits the Material 3 design language, with Phone by Google recently getting an updated search field. The circular voice memos shortcut that turns into the send button has been similarly enlarged.

There are no changes to button placement, with the ‘plus’ menu appearing at the left followed by the smiley face emoji shortcut and gallery. When you tap on the text field (to launch your keyboard), the gallery now animates out in a nice touch. We’re seeing this with beta version 20250224_01_RC00.

Google has yet to widely roll out this text field redesign. Google Messages spent 2024 going through various designs before reverting to the original (cramped) look until that beta rollout in December. This will hopefully be the final iteration ahead of a wide stable launch.

Old vs. new

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Abner Li
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