Google Messages Rolls Out Merged Camera and Gallery UI, Adds Image Quality Selection in Beta: Report

Google Messages has rolled out a redesigned user interface (UI) for sending photos and videos via rich communication services (RCS) that merges the camera viewfinder and the gallery picker, according to a report. Instead of the combined view including the camera UI, up to four recent images, and the folders option, the viewfinder now takes up most of the space, with the gallery images appearing at the bottom of the screen.

Redesigned UI in Google Messages

In a report, 9to5Google highlighted the changes rolled out with Google Messages beta app version 20241118_03_RC00. Tapping the gallery icon is now said to bring up the new UI, which is dominated by the camera viewfinder. Further, Google also brings the ability to select the media quality before sending them to others via RCS.

With its rollout, users may reportedly be able to select between HD and HD+ options. While the former is claimed to be optimised for chats with reduced quality, the latter sends media at its full resolution without any compression applied. However, the company says sending media in HD+ resolution will consume more data and take a relatively longer time to be sent. The media quality will be applied to the current as well as future chats, the report adds. Images selected at higher resolution will be marked with an “HD+” tag at the bottom.

Once the rollout of this feature is complete, the report suggests that Google will remove the Send photos faster option from the app's settings. Gadgets 360 staff members were unable to access both of these features on the Google Messages beta app. The report adds that these are not widely rolled out yet.

A similar feature was reported in the Google Messages beta app version messages.android_20241029_00_RC00.phone_samsung_openbeta_dynamic earlier this month. It is still being tested and is not available to the public yet.