Google Chat is getting a feature most messaging apps have had for years: drafts that actually stick around. Starting this month, an unsent message you start typing on your phone will still be waiting for you on your laptop later, even if you close the app or restart the device in between.
Google announced the change on its Workspace Updates blog on September 8. Drafts are saved automatically per conversation, whether it’s a direct message, a group DM, or a Space, and they sync across every device signed into the same account. Each conversation keeps its own draft in that chat’s compose box, and there’s also a dedicated drafts shortcut that pulls together every unfinished message across all your conversations in one place.
“We are introducing persistent drafts in Google Chat. Unsent messages are now automatically saved so you can finish and send later, and are also synchronized across your devices, allowing you to start composing a message on one device and finish or send it from another,” Google said in its announcement.
How long drafts stick around
Unsent drafts are retained for up to 30 days, according to Google. After that window, an unfinished message is gone. There’s no setting to change this on either the admin or end-user side — the feature is simply on, with no toggle to turn it off if you’d rather Chat not remember your half-written messages at all.
Who gets it, and when
This isn’t limited to businesses paying for Google Workspace. Google’s own rollout notes state the feature is “available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts” — meaning anyone using Chat with an ordinary Gmail account gets it too, not just corporate users.
The rollout is happening in three separate stages:
- Web, Rapid Release: started September 8, 2026, with completion expected by September 15
- Web, Scheduled Release: begins September 22, 2026
- Android and iOS, both Rapid and Scheduled Release: begins September 28, 2026
That gap matters if you’re waiting on it: the mobile apps are the last to get the update, roughly three weeks after it starts appearing on the web. If you use Chat mainly on your phone, you likely won’t see persistent drafts until late September at the earliest.
Why this is a genuinely useful fix
Chat drafts have historically been fragile — closing a conversation or losing your connection could wipe out a half-typed reply with no warning. A 30-day, cross-device draft store closes a gap that Gmail and most other messaging apps solved long ago. The lack of an opt-out is a minor tradeoff for a feature this low-risk, since drafts are visible only to the account that wrote them.
Source: Google Workspace Updates blog.
