We all have that friend who — love them as you may — forgets to respond to all of your text messages. If you're that person, a new messaging feature in the works might improve your ability to reply to your loved ones. Although it's not available yet, Google wants to leverage one of its Gmail features to help make communication feel a bit more automated.

In 2018, a new skill called "nudges" came to Google's ever-popular email service, automatically prompting you to reply after a set number of days. It's similar to snoozing an email, although without any action taken on your part. You probably don't communicate with most of your friends through Gmail, though, which is why bringing nudges to Messages makes a ton of sense.

As spotted by XDA Developers, the most recent beta for Google Messages contains several strings hinting at automated reminders coming to the app. When enabled, nudges will show you conversations you have yet to reply to at the top of the inbox — even if you've opened and read the most recent response. Likewise, messages that may require a follow-up response will also be bumped to the top of the app.

For anyone worried about nudges annoying them, both options can be disabled within Messages, making it entirely optional for your inbox. It's unclear when this might come to all users — or if it'll be on by default — but for anyone who's accidentally let a text from a friend slip by unnoticed, it could be a helpful reminder.