In October 2023, Google started rolling out a redesigned audio recording user interface in the beta version of Google Messages, and in November 2023, the company announced Voice Moods for the messaging platform. Well, Google has now started rolling out the new voice recording panel to the stable version of the app and is making Voice Moods available in the beta version of the messaging platform (via 9To5Google).
Redesigned audio recording interface
Up until now, to record audio in Google Messages to send it in a chat, you had to press and hold down the button with the microphone icon at the bottom-right corner of the conversation screen. Well, Google has now replaced the button with the microphone icon with a button that has a waveform icon. Just like the button with the microphone icon, you can hold down the button with the waveform icon to start recording audio and leave it to stop recording audio. But there’s a lot more the new button brings.
You can now single-press the button. Doing so will bring up an interface that says “Tap to record your voice” and has three buttons: Cancel, a button with a microphone icon, and Attach. Clicking the second button will make the app start recording audio. Once you do that, the button with the microphone icon gets replaced with a button to stop recording audio and the Cancel button gets replaced by the Restart button. After you record the audio, you can click on the Attach button to attach the clip to the message.
The new interface makes it easier to record audio for a long period as you don’t have to hold down any button during the entire time you are recording audio like before. It is also worth mentioning that the new audio recorder has a noise cancellation feature. It is turned on by default. You can tap on the feature in the new panel to turn it off. With the redesigned audio recording panel, Google says that it has also improved the “overall audio quality of voice messages by increasing the bitrate and sampling rate.“
Voice Moods
Once you are done recording audio using the new interface, Google Messages will provide you with nine themes that you can apply to the clip’s waveform: Smiling Face with Hearts, Rolling on the Floor Laughing, Partying Face, Loudly Crying Face, Slightly Smiling Face, Enraged Face, Face with Open Mouth, Face with Rolling Eyes, and Crying Face. These themes allow you to express to the other people in the conversation how you are feeling while recording the audio (or about the content in the clip).
We can confirm that the new audio recording panel is live in version 20240422_05_RC01 of the Google Messages app on our Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S24+. So, to get the new feature, make sure that you are running that or a newer version of the messaging platform. As for Voice Moods, Google is currently making it available in the beta version of Google Messages to select users. So, depending on your luck, you could or could not get this feature even if you get the latest beta version of the app.