With the new workspace icons Fully implemented, Google is now modifying the way Chat appears in the Android status bar to make it look less like Messages.
The home screen icons are quite distinct in terms of color (green vs. blue), but the design has more than a few similarities. Both consist of two layered chat bubbles with tails that are on the left side, although they face opposite directions.
Old
The similarities become more evident in the status bar. The first design of Chat was a simple adaptation and shrinkage in white, with a small smile as the main differentiator of Messages. At small sizes, the two icons are easily confused.
If your company uses Google Chat as its primary messaging platform (as Google does internally), this would be particularly annoying for personal versus work communication. (For comparison, Google Chat has over 50 million downloads on the Play Store, while Messages has over 10 billion.)
The Google Chat status bar icon has now been updated with an outline style design that sets things apart. The hollow nature helps a lot.
New
This change is experienced with version 2026.06.01.x of Google Chat for Android, which was widely released yesterday. Last week, Google Workspace’s degraded icons were fully released, with Gmail for Android being the holdout.
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