How to Send Direct Messages To Your Google Plus Friends

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Google Plus does not have a clear option to send direct or private messages to your Google Plus friends. if you are a Twitter or Facebook users, you might find this a little annoying.

Both Twitter and Facebook has clear and easy way to send direct messages to your friends and followers. We have already discussed how to send email to Google plus friends but this method is not universal in nature. Some users may have deactivated the email option and in that case, you won’t be able to send private messages to your Google Plus friends.

However, the following tip will help you send direct messages to any of your friends in Google Plus, provided they have added you to at least one of your circles.

1. Compose your message in the “Share” box and click in the “visible to” text box. Type + and then enter the name of the person to whom you want to send the direct message:

2. Remember to remove the “Your circles” option from the visibility textbox. When you are done selecting the person to whom you want to send the direct message, the share text box will look something like this

3. Note that I have added only one friend in the visibility box. To send the same private message to more than one people, you can add the name of multiple people one by one.

4. Once you are done selecting all the friends to whom you want to send the direct message, hit the “Share” button. Done!

The update will be shared on your stream and only those friends will be able to see it with whom you have shared your message. So if you have added only one person in the “visibility” text box, only he will be able to read the update and it will be hidden to all other friends present in your Google plus circle.

To confirm, you can click the “Limited” link and see which of your friends can read the update. In this case, only one of my friend will be able to read and comment on my post, as shown below:

If you chose to share with your extended circles in addition to other people, clicking Limited will only show that you shared this update with your extended circles and specific people won’t be identified.

But here is the final catch.

You should prevent your friend from resharing this post within his circle by clicking the drop down menu and choosing “Disable reshare”. If you ignore this option, your friend might click the “Share” link and share the private message with friends in his circle.

Can Anonymous Users See My Private Google Plus Posts?

The short answer is No.

Your Google Plus profile is public and anyone can read your about page on Google Plus, regardless of whether they have a Google plus account or not. But the posts and updates that you share in your stream won’t be visible to anonymous users and it will appear blank.

Finally, it is worth noting that you can send direct message to only those Google Plus users, who have added you to one or more of their Google circles. If they are not following your updates in the first place, your message will not appear in their stream.

More Google Plus tips and tricks