Google Messages nudge takes a page out of Gmail's book

The amount of information that we're bombarded with every day is almost a sure-fire way for important things to slip through the cracks. While many will rely on their brainpower to remember things, it has been proven that the majority of people tend to forget too easily. Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of technological solutions that try to give as a nudge about forgotten but important tasks, and Google is bringing one such solution to its Messages Android app after baking for years in Gmail.

When Google made the unpopular decision to shutter fan-favorite Inbox, it worked to bring the email app's advanced features to Gmail. Building on the Boomerang-like Inbox Pause idea, Google added a "nudge" feature to Gmail three years ago to remind users about important emails that may have been left unnoticed. Google is now bringing that to Messages since not everyone communicates via email in this day and age.

XDA took apart the 9.5 beta version of the Google Messages Android app and discovered new settings related to "Nudges." There are two separate but related settings available in this upcoming feature, one for messages that you might need to reply to and one for messages you might want to follow up. In both cases, the suggested messages will appear at the top of your messages list.

Of course, these suggestions aren't made just on a whim and utilize Google's favorite machine learning sauce to determine which messages are important and which aren't. That, in turn, probably requires allowing Google to take a peek at those messages, which might unsettle some. Fortunately, you do have the option to turn the feature off.

At the moment, there is no certainty when this nudging feature will actually land on Google Messages. It isn't even available for beta testers, which means there's still a chance that Google will pull the plug even before it has the chance to roll out to the public.