If there’s one category of Google products that is the most notorious for ending up in the infamous graveyard, it’s messaging apps. Failing to replicate the successes enjoyed by the likes of Meta-owned WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, Apple’s iMessage, or work-focused apps like Slack, the tech giant has created and shut down numerous chat apps. Google Talk, Google Wave, Google Plus, Google Hangouts, and Google Allo are a few names that have been killed off along the way. Google Chat, however, looks like it's here to stay, judging by regular updates that have seen it get features like rich text formatting, a better interface for adding attachments, and the ability to make one-to-one Meet calls directly from Gmail. Google's latest addition will now allow users to see when messages are deleted in a Chat space.

Google Chat update

Making the announcement on its Workspace Blog, Google said that the new Chat feature would cause a short message and a timestamp to be displayed in place of a deleted text during conversations. The idea behind this is to allow users to easily keep track of who deleted a message and when — this should eliminate unexplained chat gaps, provide more context and improve the readability and flow for users. In addition, deleting a message will now remove both the post and associated replies. Whereas, when a reply is deleted, only the reply and its responses will be removed, while the initial content remains intact.

To delete a Google Chat message, you need to select it and hit the Delete button. You can also edit by choosing a message, tapping the Edit icon, and clicking the Update button to save your changes. Do note that you’ll only be able to do either of these on a work or school Chat account, as personal accounts do not have the feature. And of course, you can only edit or delete messages you've sent to a conversation and have no control over those from other people.

The new Chat timestamp feature is already rolling out to users and should take 15 days or more to arrive. It will be available by default to all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic, and G Suite Business customers.