Google confirms Messages is getting a Trash folder

Earlier this month, Google Messages got an interesting new feature in beta: an email-style Trash folder where deleted messages are triaged for a set time before disappearing permanently. Today, Google’s announced that that change is set to roll out generally.

An announcement post on the Google Messages Community forum outlines how the new folder works. In a nutshell, once you’ve got the feature, texts aren’t deleted straight away, instead moving to the Trash folder. They’ll stay there for 30 days (in most cases), during which they can be recovered in case you sent them there by mistake. You also have the option to permanently delete messages in your Trash folder on demand.

We first spotted that Google was working on this Trash folder back in October, and we were able to actually try it out in Google Messages v20260227 beta a couple of weeks back. The announced version seems a lot like what we’ve seen so far, with instances of the word “Delete” being replaced with language about moving messages to trash.

You can access the Trash folder from a link that appears when you tap your profile picture in the upper right corner of the Messages UI. It’ll contain a list of all your trashed messages, which are held for 30 days on most phones or seven days on Android Go devices. From here, you can permanently delete or restore individual trashed messages, and there are buttons that let you delete or restore all your trashed messages with a single tap.

Google’s post today doesn’t say when we should expect to see the Trash folder rolling out in stable, and I’m not seeing it on my devices yet. Given the announcement, though, it’s safe to assume we’ll be seeing the new folder on our phones soon.