New Google Messages Feature Automatically Blurs Explicit Photos
Google is adding a safety layer to Messages, shielding users from unwanted explicit images before they appear on screen.
These days, going online can feel a bit like walking through a gauntlet of bouncers. One’s checking your age, another’s scanning for explicit content, and a third is making sure you’re not wandering into the wrong corner of the web.
Governments have been building these guardrails for years. For instance, the state of Texas in the U.S. has rolled out mandatory age checks for adult sites. The UK’s Online Safety Act is tightening its own screws, and other countries are sketching out their own rules. Bit by bit, the internet is being reshaped to keep explicit material out of underage hands.
Now the tech giants are adding their checkpoints. Google, after months of beta testing, is rolling out Sensitive Content Warnings in its Messages app. The feature is a built-in guardrail that scans incoming images on your phone and automatically blurs anything it detects as nudity.
If a blurred image appears, you can choose to view it, block the sender, ignore it, or check resources explaining why sharing such content can be harmful. Even if you’re the one sending or forwarding a nude, the app will throw up a warning before letting it through.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
The feature isn’t identical for everyone. For supervised teens, parents control the setting through Google’s Family Link app. Unsupervised teens (13–17) can switch it off themselves in their Google Account settings, while adults have to opt in via Google Messages’ safety settings. To enable it, they can go to Google Messages Settings > Protection & Safety > Manage sensitive content warnings > Warnings in Google Messages.
This move places Google in the same conversation as Apple, whose Sensitive Content Warning in iMessage already blurs not just images but also sensitive videos across apps like FaceTime and AirDrop. Apple’s implementation is broader, but Google’s approach leans harder on privacy, keeping all detection work local to the device.
The bigger story is less about one awkward surprise in your inbox and more about a wider cultural shift. Tech companies aren’t just waiting for lawmakers to mandate protections; they’re starting to build them in by default, especially for younger users. Still, the system isn’t perfect. Some explicit images will get through, and some innocent ones will be blurred by mistake.
With governments turning up the heat and rivals setting high benchmarks, Google’s move is a step forward. The question is whether it’s enough to meet both user expectations and the political pressure still to come.
