Gmail and Google Messages start getting Material 3 Express design

A few days ago, Google unveiled Android 16 with a bold new design called Material 3 Expressive. It brings more colorful UI elements and attention-seeking fonts and typography for important things on the screen. The new design language is not just for the operating system but also for apps. Gmail and Google Messages seem to be getting the new design for some users.

Even though Google hasn't released the Android 16 update yet, it seems to have started public beta testing of the new design via a server-side update for some Android users. Telegram user SparkRadar seems to have received the Material 3 Expressive design in the Gmail app with the update version 2025.05.11, and they shared it with Android Authority.

You can see the new design in the screenshots below.

The search bar at the top is wider and the account switcher is inside the search bar. You can also see a bolder color for the Compose floating action bar and card-based UI elements for emails in the second screenshot. It also brings pill-shaped elastic animations for swipe actions (swipe left or right), and the adjoining entries get a sticky animation when you swipe away emails.

The company seems to be rolling out the new design for Google Messages as well, and this was spotted by 9To5Google. The chat thread now appears as a separate part fromthe top bar and the text field. When you access emojis, it displays Emoji, GIFs, Stickers, and Photomoji as connected tabs, with the selected tab displaying in a pill-shaped element and a darker color, while other tabs use lighter colors.

The attachments menu that you can access by tapping the ‘Plus' button also uses the Material 3 Expressive color and each b button in the menu has a lighter color, with the background using a slightly darker background. There are no other changes to the chats list in the Google Messages app. This change was spotted in the th beta version 20250528_00_RC00 of the Google Messages app that is already available on the Play Store.

Since Gmail and Google Messages are the default email and messaging apps on Galaxy phones, these design changes could soon appear on devices running the One UI 8 beta software.