New Google Messages Profile images will replace your contact photos

Abner Li | Dec 1 2023 - 8:43 am PT

With Google making Profiles in Messages official yesterday, one thing you’ll notice is how those images will replace any contact photos you have manually set.

Profiles let you specify what name and image other users see in a conversation. If the person you’re talking to has set up a Profile, that is the photo you’ll see inside Google Messages going forward. The company confirmed to us yesterday that this will replace any previously set photo, like those that you have manually added through the Google Contacts app.

However, Google will not override the contact name you have set.

Some might not like this behavior as it overrides something you purposefully curated. For comparison, iMessage will ask before changing a profile picture and you have the ability to reject the update. That said, other messaging services don’t provide this option.

One argument in defense is that most people don’t meticulously maintain contact photos, with many conversations just seeing initials as the image, and that Profiles will be a vast improvement. Google said this new feature “addresses the problem of receiving messages from phone numbers not saved in your contacts.”

The announcement also pointed to Profiles being “particularly useful in group chats so that you know who all the other participants in the group are.”

Meanwhile, the color you set for Custom Bubbles appears for both you and the recipient, which is how it works on other services, like Meta/Facebook Messenger.

Profiles started rolling out in mid-November, and is not yet widely available for beta users.