Google Messages adds group search to new conversations screen

A nice quality of life improvement to Google Messages for Android adds group chat search to the New conversation page.

Previously, the “To” field in Start chat > New conversation would only surface individual contacts.

There is now a “Group chats” section that will search those multi-contact conversations. It queries group names and participants. The preview simply shows the last sent message, with a chevron taking you to the chat.

Group search on this page is being tested with the latest Google Message beta (version 20240820_00_RC00). It’s not yet available in the stable channel.

Old vs. new

The last update to this screen in October of 2023 removed the “Top contacts” section, while the conversation picker/share UI was updated a few weeks ago.