Google Messages, iMessage, Telegram, and several other modern messaging solutions have one thing in common: they all allow users to schedule messages. Soon, however, you’ll be able to add another core Google app to that list.
Gmail already lets you schedule emails, and the platform’s integrated Google Chat will soon let you do the same for messages.
This has been a long time coming. Google confirmed that message scheduling is a highly requested feature, and rolling it out now should enable more productive and seamless communication for users.
By scheduling messages, Chat users can be respectful of colleagues time and avoid sending messages late at night or early in the morning when recipients may be in a different time zone or unavailable.
Here’s how scheduling works
You draft your message like you normally would. If you’d like to send it immediately, you’d tap the send button. If you want to schedule it, you’d click the new down arrow icon next to the send button. You then have the option to select a time and schedule the message up to 120 days in the future.
Once a message has been scheduled, that specific conversation will be marked with a banner above the compose box. There’s also a new Draft shortcut in the left-aligned sidebar. Clicking the banner above the compose box “or the new Drafts shortcut in the left panel will open a dedicated area to manage all scheduled messages, where users can edit, reschedule, or cancel them.”
Message scheduling has begun rolling out. It is expected to be widely available around mid-January 2026. Additionally, message scheduling isn’t paywalled. It is available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.
The change hasn’t rolled out to me just yet. Are you seeing it on your end? Let us know in the comments below!
