Google has been pushing RCS, the new texting standard meant to replace SMS and MMS, since around the same time itacquired Jibe Mobileback in 2015. Getting key players to adopt the standard has been the biggest hurdle, withApple famously holding out despite pressure from Google. That hasn’t stopped the company from implementing new RCS features in its Messages app for Android, and today, Google has announced a major development with its messaging standard.
A Google Community Manager took tothe Messages help forumsto announce that RCS is now enabled by default for all new and existing users, unless they previously disabled RCS (via9to5Google). This is a major departure from the oldRCS enrollment processthat prompted users to enable the feature and sometimes required registering a phone number manually. Now, enrollment will happen automatically and silently in the background.
Despite this change, it’s still possible todisable RCSfunctionality if you’d rather not usethe features it adds to Google Messages. Tap your profile picture or initial in the top-right corner of the app, then head toMessages settings → RCS chats(orChat features) to disable the toggle next toRCS Chats.
Google also announced that it has finished its rollout of end-to-end encryption for group chats in Messages. We had previouslyspotted this feature in developmentback in December 2022, then we noticed Google enablingE2EE on group chats in the stable channelin April. Now, the company says E2EE for group chats is fully rolled out afterindividual chats got the same featureback in 2021. This means thatallmessages sent over RCS are only viewable by the sender and recipient — never by Google, your carrier, or any other parties.
This news comes on the heels of several recent changes to Google’s Messages app.New badges were spotted in testingabout a month ago to indicate when a contact has RCS enabled, andMagic Compose AI-generated responseswere added as a beta feature not long before that. It may not have the user base of a service like WhatsApp, but Google Messages is finally looking like the true iMessage competitor we’ve been asking for on Android.
