Google Messages rolling out taller text field that expands 4-line limit

Abner Li | Apr 12 2025 - 10:35 am PT

After widely rolling out the redesigned compose field last month, Google Messages is now addressing a common complaint about the 4-line limit when drafting by letting the text box get much taller.

Previously, there was a 4-line limit before what you typed went out of view. This was particularly annoying when sharing URLs (with even short ones easily spanning three lines), and often required you to scroll to see what you wrote at the beginning.

With the latest Google Messages beta (version 20250409_01_RC00), we’re now seeing a 14-line text field that should be more than enough for people to see everything they typed before sending.

Old vs. new

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The expanded Google Messages text field limit is not yet available in the stable channel on phones we checked today.

This is a nice quality-of-life improvement. Google was presumably waiting to roll out the redesigned compose box before introducing the expanded field.

Meanwhile, Google has now widely rolled out a tweak that adds more padding above and below the unactivated/empty text field to better align with Material 3. The send button also gets bigger as a result.