An essential Google Messages group-chat feature finally looks set to launch soon

• The latest Google Messages beta hides a working version of group chat muting
• The feature requires some effort to get working, but seems likely to be launching soon
• There's no word on a release date yet

Earlier this month we reported on rumors that suggested Google Messages would be getting a snooze feature so you can temporarily turn off group chat notifications, and now it looks even more likely that this feature is on the way.

That’s according to a new Android Authority teardown of the latest Google Messages build, in which the AA team actually managed to get the tool to work – suggesting it’s very close to release.

The snooze feature will see a new button added to the toolbar (which appears at the top of the screen when you long-press on a chat).

Choosing snooze will cause a second menu to appear, where you can choose to mute a group chain for one hour, eight hours, 24 hours, or 'always'. The menu also reveals that “other members will not see that you snoozed this chat.”

You can also tweak your snooze options within user profiles, with this option giving you the ability to fine-tune notifications – such as muting everything except direct @ mentions in the chat.

A group chat essential

Muting can be an invaluable group chat function. Sometimes you just need to focus on something for a few hours and don’t want your phone to be bombarded with notifications. And we’ve all been in the family group chat which might be just a few very active relatives pinging messages back and forth – it would feel rude to leave, but only about 5% of the messages are relevant to you (and if a message is relevant the sender can always @ you).

Muting allows you to remove some distractions from your life without completely shutting yourself off socially.

As with all leaked features, there’s no guarantee that this will launch; however, given how in-depth the muting feature already appears to be, it seems likely that it’s not only on the way, but on the way soon.

If and when it does eventually launch, it looks like it could be joined by two other very useful Google Messages features that are also being teased by the latest beta.

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