Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Verizon Messages Plus will shut down on December 9 with Verizon recommending users transition to Google Messages.
- Now Google has released a quick guide for Verizon Messages Plus users to show them how to find equivalents to their favorite features, as well as introduce them to brand new ones exclusive to Google Messages.
- Unfortunately, there is no official migration tool if you were hoping to quickly transfer existing messages, requiring users to manually forward these messages or use a third-party SMS backup tool.
The rollout of RCS on iPhones was an important step for the messaging standard, finally making it easier for Android and iPhone users to communicate without reverting to basic SMS messages. In the wake of this, we’ve seen several RCS messaging apps shut down in favor of consolidating under Google Messages. Samsung was the first to make this move, but back in October Verizon announced it would be doing the same. While Big Red initially planned to shut down Verizon Messages and its Message Plus app on November 7, it has since extended the closure date to December 9.
With Verizon’s app shutdown date just days away Google is now hoping to make it a bit easier to switch, thanks to a new guide released through Google Support. The guide explains how to better customize backgrounds and bubble colors, notification sounds, text size, and more.
While the guide is helpful, if you were hoping for a way to transfer your messages easily, there’s no official tool or anything. There are third-party SMS backup apps, but in most cases, we recommend just manually forwarding your messages if possible as these tools often require a lot of access privileges and don’t always work correctly anyhow. The good news is once you switch to Google Messages you can enable Google Drive backups so this isn’t a problem in the future.
