How to Use Chat Themes in Google Messages (They're Private)

Google officially announced custom chat themes for Messages on Aug. 27, closing out months of beta testing with a feature that lets you assign a distinct color palette and wallpaper to any individual conversation (9to5Google, last week). If you've been wondering how to use chat themes in Google Messages since spotting the option on a friend's phone, the mechanics are simple. One detail about how the feature actually works, though, is worth understanding before you touch a single setting.

The feature replaces the narrower "Change colors" option that had offered nine bubble-and-background combinations since 2024, and it only works in conversations where RCS is switched on (9to5Google, two months ago). More importantly, Google describes chat themes as "private to you," visible only on the device that set them and invisible to whoever is on the other end of the thread (9to5Google, last week).

That single fact should shape how you think about the feature before you spend ten minutes picking the perfect vacation photo. This guide covers checking whether the update has reached your phone, applying a theme step by step, and understanding why the same rollout's other new feature, shared Keep notes, works the opposite way.

Check whether chat themes have reached your phone (and your chat)

Start by updating Google Messages itself. Open the Play Store, tap your profile icon, go to Manage apps & device, and install any pending Messages update (Android Authority, last week).

Next, confirm RCS is switched on for the specific conversation you want to customize, not just somewhere in the app's general settings. Open Messages settings, tap RCS chats, and make sure Turn on RCS chats is enabled. Chat themes only appear inside RCS conversations; a thread with the same contact that's still running on plain SMS or MMS won't show the option, even if RCS is active elsewhere in your app (Android Authority, last week; 9to5Google, last week).

Once the option is live on your device, the change is easy to spot. The old Change colors entry in a conversation's three-dot menu gets replaced by Chat theme, sometimes flagged with a small red dot to mark it as new (9to5Google, two months ago).

Timing is where patience comes in. This is a staged, server-side rollout, not a single global switch, so two people running the identical version of Messages can still see different results depending on when Google flips the setting for their account (9to5Google, two months ago). Reports from 9to5Google on the day of the official announcement and from Android Authority two days later found different levels of availability across builds (9to5Google, last week; Android Authority, last week). Updating the app and enabling RCS are necessary steps, but neither guarantees the option shows up immediately. If the menu still reads "Change colors" after you've done both, that gap is exactly what those two reports show, not a mistake in your settings.

How to use chat themes in Google Messages

Once the option has reached your phone, here's the full path to customize Google Messages conversations one thread at a time.

1. Open Google Messages and tap into the RCS conversation you want to customize.
2. Tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner, then tap Chat theme (Android Authority, last week).
3. Start with Colors. The default option, Dynamic Color, automatically matches either your phone's system accent color or whatever wallpaper you've picked. Eight additional static styles sit alongside it if you'd rather lock in a specific shade. Whichever you choose changes more than the message bubbles; it also touches the conversation background and other interface elements, including the voice-recorder button (Android Authority, last week; 9to5Google, two months ago).
4. Scroll to Wallpapers, which Android Authority called the biggest addition in this update. Browse Google Messages custom wallpapers organized into curated categories such as Animals, Architecture, Landscapes, and Space, or tap Choose a photo to change the chat background in Google Messages using an image pulled from your phone's gallery or from Google Photos (9to5Google, last week; Android Authority, last week).
5. Fine-tune if needed. After you pick a wallpaper, bubbles adjust automatically to complement it, but you can still manually tweak the palette using the carousel at the top of the screen regardless of which route you took (9to5Google, last week).
6. Tap Apply to save the changes, or use Reset to default in the same menu to undo everything and go back to how the chat looked before (9to5Google, last week).

During earlier beta testing, Android Authority also found animated GIFs working as wallpaper options alongside static images, though it's unclear whether that carried through unchanged to this release (Android Authority, three months ago).

One readability issue is worth watching for. During that same early testing, Android Authority flagged that text near the top of the screen could get lost against darker wallpaper images (Android Authority, three months ago). If that happens after you apply a photo, don't fight a busy background with contrast tweaks. Pick a lighter or simpler image instead.

The limitation that should change how you use this

Chat themes are private by design. Google says they're "only visible to you on your device," and Android Authority independently confirmed that neither a one-on-one contact nor anyone else in a group thread can see the color or wallpaper you've chosen (9to5Google, last week; Android Authority, last week).

That single fact changes what the feature is actually for. A chat theme adjusts your local view of a conversation, not the conversation itself. Google's own suggested use cases, like a latte theme for a coffee friend or a beach photo for a vacation group chat, sound communal, but Android Central is blunt about the reality: that beach photo set for the group thread isn't going to show up on anyone else's phone (Android Central, today).

Set a theme to make a conversation nicer to look at on your own device, not to signal anything to the person you're texting.

How to add a shared Keep note in Google Messages

Alongside chat themes, the same rollout brought shared Google Keep notes to Messages. Tap the plus button in any conversation, and you can insert a note that everyone in that thread can view, edit, and add to without leaving the app (Android Central, today).

Google positions this one for actual group logistics: a shared grocery list, a vacation itinerary, anything a group needs to build together. Unlike a chat theme, a Keep note dropped into a conversation is something every participant can open, edit, and contribute to, not something that renders only on your screen (Android Central, today).

Current reporting reviewed for this guide doesn't specify whether shared notes require RCS or a Google account for every participant in the thread. Treat that as an open question rather than an assumption, and don't expect the RCS checklist from earlier in this guide to carry over automatically here.

The contrast between the two features matters more than either one on its own. In a single release, Google shipped a personalization tool that stays local to one device and a collaboration tool built for the whole group to use together. Knowing which one to reach for, and what everyone else in the conversation will actually see, is the practical difference.

Where this leaves you

The fastest way to find out if chat themes have reached your phone is to open a conversation's three-dot menu and look for "Chat theme" in place of the old "Change colors" entry. If it's not there yet, update Messages, confirm RCS chats are turned on for that specific thread, and check back in a few days. Both 9to5Google and Android Authority saw the option appear inconsistently across builds within days of each other, so uneven timing is normal, not a bug (9to5Google, last week; Android Authority, last week).

Once both features show up, the choice is simple. Reach for a chat theme when a conversation is just for your own eyes. Reach for a shared Keep note when the whole thread needs to see and add to the same thing. One customizes your view of a conversation; the other coordinates everyone in it.