Xbox One May 2019 update now available with messaging improvements and more

Xbox One X, Xbox One S
Xbox One X, Xbox One S (Image credit: Matt Brown | Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • After weeks of testing in the Xbox preview program, the Xbox One May 2019 update is rolling out to everyone.
  • The update brings some key changes to messaging and your friends list.
  • You'll now be able to see where your friends are playing games, prioritize messages from friends, and better sort your games and apps.

The Xbox One May 2019 update has been in testing for quite some time, but it's rolling out to everyone starting today. While it isn't a massive update in the grand scheme of things, it does bring some handy changes to your friends list, messaging, and tweaks to how your apps and games are sorted.

On your friends list, you'll now be able to see not only what your friends are playing, but where they're playing them. If you have several friends playing Minecraft for example, your friends list will now show if they're gaming from their Xbox One, Windows 10 PC, or on mobile. Each option will be indicated by an icon next to the game.

Message requests are also "getting smarter," Microsoft says. Going forward, requests will prioritize messages from your friends and "anyone you want to communicate with" while relegating everyone else to a secondary message requests tab.

Finally, apps and games that begin with articles like "a," "an," and "the" will no longer be sorted by those articles. Instead, they'll be sorted alphabetically by the following word in the title. "The Witcher," for example, can now be found in the "W" section, rather than "T."

You should be able to grab the update on your Xbox One console starting today to check out all of the new features.

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Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl