What you need to know
- Google may have removed the useful messaging feature.
- A new report indicates that “Categories” have disappeared in the messaging app for a number of users.
- The feature appears to have disappeared at least in the beta version of the app installed on Pixel devices.
Google Messages picked Categories last year for a wider group of users after it was initially limited to the Indian market, giving people an automated way to keep their burgeoning inbox properly organized. Surprisingly, the feature seems to be gone for some users.
As reported by 9to5Google (Opens in a new tab), the ability to view messages by category is gone, and navigating to its location in the settings menu shows that the feature is no longer available. The feature displayed three categories at the top of the inbox view: “All,” “Personal,” and “Business,” just like the categories in Gmail.
The feature has been particularly useful for those who receive an overwhelming amount of messages from personal contacts and colleagues, as well as promotional messages. It didn’t require any manual sorting because the app used machine learning to automatically sort messages into these categories, something not found in many of the best messaging apps out there.
One of the advantages of this feature is that it can help users get rid of inboxes and reduce the time it takes to find important messages. For example, instead of scrolling through your entire inbox, you can go directly to the Business category if you’re looking for a specific transaction receipt.
It’s unclear if the feature’s disappearance was due to a software bug or a deliberate move by Google to quietly turn it off. Assuming Google pulled the categories, that wouldn’t be surprising given the search giant’s haphazard behavior in discontinuing a bunch of features and services lately.
A few Android Central writers and editors based in India and the US have noticed that category slides have disappeared from the top of their inbox. However, they still see the toggle in the settings menu on some of their phones, and turning on the feature restores the categories.
However, our very own Derek Lee noticed that both the category chips and the toggle in the Settings menu are missing from one of his phones, while there’s only the former on his other device, as shown in the screenshots below. Both phones have a beta version of Messages installed.
picture 1 to 2
This indicates that the problem is caused by a bug, although it is not widespread. 9to5 notes that some users have noticed the mysterious disappearance of categories in recent weeks. The issue has been spotted on Google Pixel devices running the beta version of the app, and it doesn’t appear to be related to any specific version of Messages.
Android Central has reached out to Google, and we’ll update this article as soon as we hear back.