At present it is not yet possible, however, there are already unequivocal clues for the future: Google Messages will offer users the possibility to choose whether to activate or deactivate pinch to zoom in chats.
Google Messages says goodbye to accidental zooms, but not right away
Let’s start from a fundamental premise, that is to explain that ” but not immediately “: what we are talking about is not yet the result of an update of Google Messages, but only the proceeds of an APK Insight: the latest version of the app present on the Google Play Store has been decompiled and lines of code have emerged regarding this future novelty.
That said, Google has been trying to promote Messages as a kind of new standard since the rollout of RCS, however, if you use the app, you may have come across a new feature that is handy for some, and a nuisance for others: gesture pinch to zoom enabled by default is impossible to disable. Although there is no trace of it in the app Settings, it is sufficient to open any conversation and execute the gesture to see the pop-up message Pinch to zoom in or out briefly.
For those who may not have perfect eyesight, this could even be a pleasant discovery, while all the others may prefer to choose whether to deactivate it or keep it active (risking from time to time to enlarge the text with some accidental touches).
Well for this second group of people there is good news: the latest version of Google Messages rolled out in the beta channel (20220121) contains traces of a new toggle arriving in the Settings: Pinch to zoom conversation text.
As you can see from the following screenshots, once the aforementioned toggle is disabled in the app settings, performing the gesture will result in a simple “bounce” with no consequences for the size of the text. The same toggle also seems to lend itself to another possible use: its deactivation locks the text at the selected zoom level, therefore users with less acute eyesight could use it to always find the enlarged text, without having to pinch each time to zoom.
How to update Google Messages
As explained, this feature is not yet available even in the beta version of Google Messages. In any case, the most recent version of the application can be downloaded from the Play Store.