Texting has been a regular part of our lives with traditional cell phones for decades, but the SMS we still use today hasn’t aged very well. SMS is limited by nature and has few security protocols, so it’s time we moved on to something more useful in the era of smartphones. The new RCS messaging standard, led by efforts by Google to unify around the GSMA’s Universal Profile, has arrived to serve as a universal and global SMS/MMS replacement. RCS also provides us with many modern features that can benefit us, such as end-to-end encryption for all users. It’s also been in the news a lot lately thanks to a recent Wall Street Journal article and a renewed push by Android and its supporters to get Apple to support RCS.
Google has all the RCS chat features built right into its own Messages app, making the initial setup pretty simple. And since many Android phones come preinstalled with Google Messages, you might already be using the app right now for both SMS/MMS. Follow the simple steps in this guide to enable RCS chats on your phone, allowing you to supercharge your smartphone messaging game.
This guide is focused on the Google Messages app, which is the default messaging app on Google Pixel phones and many other devices sold, including those from Samsung (outside the U.S.), OnePlus, Motorola, and more. If your phone doesn’t come with Google Messages preinstalled, you can download it manually.
Some regions may not support RCS Chat inside Google Messages, though it is available in many of Android’s most populous markets.
Messages will prompt to enable RCS Chat
If your region supports RCS inside Google Messages, most of the time it will prompt you to enable the feature once the handshake happens between your phone and the server. If the prompt below shows up, you’re good to go messaging.
This is the prompt you’ll get when Google Messages determines your phone and carrier support Google Chat RCS.
You can tell that you’re sending RCS Chat messages because the input dialog box will say “Chat message” and your texts will have read receipts. If you’re communicating with someone who is using an up-to-date version of the Messages app and Google determines both endpoints support it, the messages will be sent end-to-end encrypted, which will be shown with a little “lock” icon.
This is what an active encrypted RCS chat looks like in Google Messages.
In situations where Google Messages doesn’t automatically enable RCS Chat and you want to enable it manually — or you want to disable it after it’s already been enabled — follow the directions below.
How to enable RCS Chat in Google Messages
Before you can start sending and receiving RCS chats on your phone, you’ll need to enable the feature since it’s off by default. To get your new messaging experience all set up, you can do the following:
- Open the Messages app to the main screen.
- Tap the three-dot menu and go to Settings.
- Tap Chat features.
- Tap the Enable chat features button to turn it on.
- The chat features will now attempt to register your device automatically as long as it has service from your mobile carrier.
The options to show others you’ve read a message and when you’re typing are both enabled by default. You can always turn these off with the flip of a switch if you want for any reason. You can also adjust the auto-download file settings if you’re on a limited data connection. Now that RCS is enabled, you can send real-time messages and share large media files with others. It’s a similar experience you might get from WhatsApp, except RCS replaces SMS/MMS instead.
Some VPNs may cause an issue where it takes longer than usual to activate the chat features. If you give it a few minutes, it’ll work just fine in most cases. The same thing might happen when connecting to another VPN server after activation, so keep that in mind while changing servers. However, we’ve also seen various reports of VPNs actually preventing activation entirely. You may or may not have any issues with your VPN, though.
How to disable RCS Chat in Google Messages
There could be various reasons why you might want to disable the RCS chat features in the Messages app. If you’ve been having issues with the connection and it’s not working correctly anymore, turning the setting off and reactivating it might be a good reason to do so. Whenever you need to disable the RCS chat features on your device, you should do the following:
- Open the Messages app to the main screen.
- Tap the three-dot menu, then go to Settings.
- Tap Chat features.
- Tap the Enable chat features button to disable RCS chats.
- In the new window that pops up, tap Turn off to confirm your choice.
- The chat features will now be disabled on your device, and you’ll be removed from any existing RCS chat groups.
From this point, all of the messages you send and receive will revert back to SMS/MMS until you enable RCS chats again. It’s also advisable to disable RCS before you get a new phone so you can avoid any potential messaging issues from the previous device. If you keep your old phone, it’s easy to disable these settings first, but if you no longer have access to it, Google has a form you can fill out to deregister your phone number.
For future reference, make sure you don’t turn the chat features off and on multiple times in a short amount of time. You might accidentally lock yourself out from using them for a little while. As of writing this guide, we’ve seen multiple reports of up to 10 days before some users could enroll their device back with the RCS chat features.
RCS is the next-generation messaging standard that we should all be using right now; however, it’ll take time to replace SMS/MMS entirely. Google’s ambitions are high, but unifying the world using a single universal messaging protocol is certainly possible. If you followed this guide to enable RCS chats on your phone, you now have a much better way to message your other Android family and friends regardless of where they live.
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