with new Workspace icons fully featured Google is now adjusting how Chat appears in the Android status bar to look less like Messages.
The home screen icons are quite different in color (green and blue), but there are a few similarities in design. It consists of two layers of chat bubbles with their tails on the left, even though they both face opposite directions.
Old
Similarities are most visible in the status bar. Chat’s initial design was a simple fit and shrink in white, with a small smiley serving as the main differentiator from Messages. At small sizes, the two icons are easily confused.
If your company uses Google Chat as its primary messaging platform (like Google does internally), this would be especially annoying for personal and business communication. (For comparison, Google Chat has over 50 million downloads on the Play Store, and Messages has 10+ billion.)
The Google Chat status bar icon has now been updated with an outline style design that makes things stand out. The loose nature helps a bit.
New
It is alive with change version 2026.06.01.x Google Chat for Android, which became widespread yesterday. Last week, gradient Google Workspace icons were fully launched, while Gmail for Android became stable.
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