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Google Chat Gets Persistent Drafts for Unfinished Messages
Confirmed
In Short: Google has started rolling out a feature that keeps your unfinished messages in Google Chat, ensuring you won't lose your thoughts when switching devices.
Google has introduced a new feature to its Google Chat app that ensures your unfinished messages are saved and persist across devices. This update addresses a common frustration among users who would often lose their work in progress when switching between their web and mobile devices.
The feature works by saving a separate draft for each conversation directly in the compose box. When you return to the app, your draft will still be there, even if you close Chat or restart your device. Google has also added a new 'Drafts' shortcut that brings all your unfinished messages together for easy access.
This update is part of Google's ongoing efforts to improve the user experience of its messaging app. However, the feature is currently in the process of being rolled out, with some users already seeing the changes while others may have to wait.
While this is a basic feature, it's one that Google Chat has likely needed for some time, as it simplifies the process of continuing conversations without the need to copy and paste text between devices.
What's still developing
- You could start writing a message in Google Chat on the web, leave your desk, and finish it later on your Android phone without copying the text somewhere else first.
- More importantly, those drafts will sync across your devices.
- Update, September 2, 2026 (03:32 AM ET): Google has confirmed to us that it is working on a fix for this issue.
- Original article, August 31, 2026 (07:00 AM ET): Google Messages is getting some welcome attention with custom chat themes and selective text copying finally becoming available, but the app’s recent run of bugs is taking some shine off those additions.
- Besides broken RCS messaging and conversations turning into multiple threads, users are reporting a more worrying problem: Messages appears to be pulling old texts from unrelated conversations and attaching or sending them with new messages.
- A user starts a new conversation, only for Messages to insert a message from a completely different chat, sometimes from months or even years ago.
- These are community-reported workarounds, however, rather than fixes confirmed by Google, and a factory reset can result in lost data without a proper backup.
- Other reports mention verification codes, personal conversations, and messages sent to colleagues.