Following the announcement last month, Google Messages has widely rolled out its new Trash folder to save you from accidental deletions.
Previously, deleting a conversation immediately removed it from your Android phone. The new Trash folder serves as a “safety net.”
After tapping the “Trash” icon, Google Messages will explain the new behavior: “Chat will be deleted after 30 days.”
This “grace period” gives you a month before conversations are permanently deleted. (On Android Go devices, the duration is 7 days to “save space.”)
You can access the Trash folder from the account menu by tapping your profile image in the top-right corner. It appears underneath Archived, which is unchanged today.
This list shows how many messages are in each conversation. You can “Delete all” or quickly restore all or individual threads back to the main screen.
Meanwhile, if a chat in the Trash receives a new message, a “new thread with only the new message appears in your main chat list,” with the previous ones remaining in the Trash folder.
We’re seeing the Google Messages Trash widely rolled out with stable version 20260327_00_RC00 of the app.
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