Google has announced a new feature for its communication service Google Chat. The new feature will allow users to “star” important messages in Chat, making it easier to locate and access them later without having to scroll through extensive conversations.
“Following the recent announcement of home and mentions in Google Chat, we’re excited to introduce starred on web, an additional shortcut in the redesigned navigation panel that helps you stay on top of your most important messages in Chat,” the tech giant announced in a Workspace Updates blogpost on November 16.
Also read: Google Chat gains new message linking feature: Here’s how to use it
This feature will allow you to mark messages with a “star” in Chat, making them easily accessible through the starred shortcut in the navigation panel. This feature can prove handy when you want to revisit specific messages later on.
Also read: Google Chat users can now easily differentiate incoming versus outgoing messages: Here’s how
This feature is currently rolling out on Google Chat for web, and will be available on mobile in 2024.
Google noted that the new feature “is unavailable in existing spaces organised by conversation topic (legacy threaded).”
To star a message, simply hover over the message and click the star icon or click on the three-dot overflow menu to display the star option.
In our opinion, the introduction of the starred feature in Google Chat offers several benefits for users. Users can mark important or relevant messages with a star, making it easier to locate and access them later without having to scroll through extensive conversations.
In September, Google announced a message linking feature for Google Chat. This feature helps users to easily link to a specific message in the communication service. To generate links to messages more easily so that others can reference a particular topic or announcement, the company added a “Copy link” option for all messages posted in spaces, group messages and direct messages. Once the link is sent and clicked by a colleague, they will be taken to the original message within Chat as long as they have access to the conversation or space.
