You can send and receive text messages with friends and contacts on Google Messages.
Important: Some of these steps only work on Android 6.0 and up. Learn how to check your Android version.
Start a conversation
- Open Google Messages
.
- Tap Start chat.
- In 'To', enter the names, phone numbers or email addresses that you'd like to message. You can also choose from your top contacts or your whole contacts list.
.Send a message
- Tap the message box.
- Enter your message. If you'd like to save it as a draft and go back, tap Back
.
- When you’ve finished, tap Send
.
.
. Tip: Find out how to share contacts in your messages.
Send a voice message
- Tap the message box.
- Tap the microphone
.
- Record your voice message.
- The voice message is automatically saved as a draft, so you can listen to it before you send it.
- The voice message isn't sent until you tap Send
.
- Tap send
. Forward a message
After you open a conversation, you can send it to a new contact at any time.
- Open Google Messages
- Open a chat.
- Tap and hold a message.
- Tap More
Forward.
- Choose your contact.
- Tap send
Forward.Read text messages
To read a message that you've just got, swipe down from the top of your screen and tap New message 
You can also open any conversation in Google Messages to read it again.
Mark messages as read and unread
- Mark all messages as read: Tap More
Mark all as read.
- Mark a message as unread:
- In the conversation history, touch and hold the conversation that you want to mark as unread.
- At the top, tap
Mark all as read.Play a video or recording
- To play a video or recording that you received, tap a conversation.
- Next to the video or recording, tap Play
.
.Call someone while in Google Messages
- To call someone, tap a conversation.
- At the top right, tap Call
.
Read archived messages
- To read archived messages, open your list of conversations.
- Tap More
Tip: Learn how to change your notification settings.