Google Messages Finally Lets You Copy Only Part of a Text

If you use Google Messages, which now comes as the default on Galaxy phones, there’s something you couldn’t do. You couldn’t copy parts of a text in Google Messages. Not anymore. Last month, folks over at Android Authority managed to activate the feature while it was still in testing. Today, the same team reports that it’s now rolling out, starting with the latest beta.

Latest Google Messages beta adds long-awaited partial text copy feature

Google Messages is now rolling out the ability to copy only parts of a message, instead of forcing you to copy the whole thing and then paste it somewhere else to sort it out yourself. You can kiss those extra steps goodbye. Starting with Google Messages v20260306 beta (via Android Authority), you can now copy a specific part of a text message, whether it’s an RCS or SMS.

You can now long-press a message and drag to highlight a specific portion of the text you want to copy. If you’d rather copy the entire message, you can still tap the existing “Copy” option in the message menu.

Suffice to say, it fixes one of the biggest pain points, which has honestly annoyed me on several occasions. For example, I’ve had to copy entire messages, especially ones with courier tracking numbers, paste them into the message box, and then copy the specific part again. These extra steps may not seem like much, but why would you want to deal with them in the first place? I’m glad to see Google taking Messages in the right direction.

Quite frankly, the developers behind Google Messages must have been putting in extra hours. Not every addition is a major one, but many of them are solid quality-of-life updates, including the addition of a Trash folder, testing encrypted RCS across platforms, and other changes.