Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- After laying the groundwork over the past few weeks, Google Messages looks ready to introduce custom chat themes.
- In addition to setting chat color palettes, you’ll also be able to select your choice of background art.
- Messages will provide several galleries of wallpaper options, or you can choose your own pic.
Google Messages has been working on a new way to give your chats a bit more of a personalized feel. Going back a little over a month now, we’ve been tracking Google’s progress towards bringing customized themes to your conversations, even letting you set your own background wallpaper. And now in Google’s latest beta, it looks like this new tool is finally ready to roll out.
We’re looking at version messages.android_20260523_00_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic of the Messages app. Once Google flips the changes present in this release live, users will see the “Change colors” option in their chats’ overflow menu replaced by a new “Chat themes” entry:
The ability to set a custom color palette for each chat remains, but now it’s being joined by new wallpaper options. Google’s hooking us up with a bunch of categories packed with ready-to-use wallpapers — or you’re always welcome to choose a photo of your own.
If you don’t like the look you’ve ended up choosing, there’s a reset button to wipe the slate clean and go back to the default chat appearance. While this all seems to be working reasonably well, we do notice that text up top can get a little lost against a dark background, so maybe that’s something Google might think about tweaking further.
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Here’s a look at some of the wallpaper options Google is offering Messages users for their chat themes:
Google could be turning this on for beta testers at any moment — if it hasn’t started already — so you may get your own chance to set some custom Messages chat themes very soon.
Especially with Samsung Messages just about to shut down for good, users who have appreciated Samsung’s support for custom backgrounds may finally feel like they can transition over to Google without losing everything they liked about their old app.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Beyond color palettes, you can now set custom wallpapers for chats. Google provides several galleries of ready-to-use wallpapers, or you can choose your own photo, and a reset button restores the default chat appearance.
Once Google turns it on, the Change colors option in a chat's overflow menu is replaced by a Chat themes entry. The feature is in version messages.android_20260523_00_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic of the Messages beta.
It looks ready to roll out and could be turned on for beta testers at any moment. Since this comes from an APK teardown, the feature may still not reach public release.
Samsung Messages is about to shut down for good. Users who liked its custom backgrounds can move to Google Messages without losing that feature.
