I have certain contacts whose messages I need to ensure I never miss. There are many ways of doing this but my go-to is to use Android's text "bubble" feature, which creates a small, movable bubble for the conversation on my phone's home screen. By doing this, I always know when an important contact has sent me a message and I can simply tap the bubble to open the conversation (without having to first open Messages).
I only do this for very important contacts; otherwise, my display would be awash with bubbles. That's not very efficient.
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The bubbles feature has been around for some time, so your Android device should have it included with the Google Messages app. One thing to keep in mind is that bubbles is separate from Rich Communication Services (RCS), so just because you've enabled that feature doesn't automatically add bubbling for conversations.
With that said, let's bubble.
How to bubble a Google Messages conversation
What you'll need: The only things you'll need are an Android device and a Messages conversation to bubble. That's it. Let's make it happen.
If you're using a Samsung Galaxy device, you won't find easy access to your notification history. Fortunately, Samsung has made it easy to bubble a conversation directly from the Notification itself. So, when you see a notification for a Messages conversation, expand it, and then tap the small square with the arrow pointing to the bottom right corner and the conversation will be added as a bubble to your homescreen.
Tap the bubble to view the conversation and respond. Once you're done, you can drag the bubble to the bottom of the display to dismiss it or you can leave it there for easy access. Personally, once I've responded, I drag the bubble off the screen so when it reappears, I know there's a message I need to respond to.
Bubbles are a great way to ensure you never miss an important conversation on Android. I highly recommend using this feature, so you can be certain to stay up to date with certain contacts.
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One thing to keep in mind, however, is that once you bubble a conversation, it will always appear in a bubble. The only way to stop that behavior is to go into your settings and disable the conversation for bubbling.