Google’s Material 3 Expressive is Android’s next-generation design language, building on elements of Material 3. We’ve already seen more than a handful of Google apps adopt the new design language, including key apps like Google Messages.
So far, we’ve seen Google’s messaging app incorporate M3 Expressive elements in several phases, with the most recent redesign bringing the design language to the chat screen. Now, Google Messages is also rolling out the account switching menu design. With this design update, the Material 3 Expressive redesign of Google Messages is officially complete.
There’s nothing fancy here, and you’ll find the same elements as in the redesigns of apps like Gmail, Maps, Drive and others.
The menu items also don’t change, although they are from the old version, users will find that the items are now divided into two groups/containers under “More from this app” (via 9to5Google).
More upgrades coming to Google Messages
The old account switching menu compared to the updated version
The first group contains Your profile, Archive, Spam and blocking, Mark all as readAnd Device pairingwhile the second group includes Your data in Messages, Message settingsAnd Help and feedback. However, the actual account switcher and user avatar are quite large, which, as 9to5 points out, may not really be necessary for an app like Google Messages.
While this is a good idea for apps like Gmail or Drive, where you may need to switch between multiple accounts more often, Google Messages users are unlikely to switch accounts with the same frequency. Still, this design is entirely consistent with what we’ve seen with other Google apps in the recent past, and we can’t blame Google for at least maintaining consistency across its apps.
I see the updated account switching menu in version 20251006_02_RC00 beta of Google Messages, although 9to5Google notes that it is also rolling out to the stable version of the app.
In addition to these design changes, the Messages team is working on a few feature-related improvements to the app. Among them, the upcoming integration of Google’s Nano Banana model, aka Gemini 2.5 Flash Image. Additionally, we’re also aware of upcoming changes to link previews in discussions, as well as an “Insights” feature for the messaging app.
