Availability is limited for now
Google has been nothing short of vocal in its support for RCS, playing an instrumental role even as holdouts like Apple refuse to consider switching. Beyond its advocacy of the standard, Google has also given the Messages app a lot of attention: it sports a new icon now, and several other cosmetic and functional improvements are in the works. For its latest change, the Messages developers are testing some Signal-like delivery indicators and read receipts in RCS chats.
Up until now, RCS chats in Messages reflected their delivery status with words: Sending, Sent, Delivered, and Read. These indicators were visible under the last message you sent, accompanied by a lock icon showing it’s an encrypted RCS conversation. The Messages app is now switching to Signal-like indicators with check marks inside a circle, as 9to5Google observed.
The new Messages indicators for sent, delivered, and read messages
The app shows a single check mark under sent messages and two check marks under delivered ones. In RCS chats with groups, the read indicator is replaced by specific mentions of people who saw the text, or a simple “Read by all” indicator. Meanwhile, chats with individuals show two filled-in circled check marks underneath read messages, much like Signal’s check marks in circles, or WhatsApp’s gray and blue check marks.
The new read receipts in the Google Messages app appear to be a test, but could see a wider rollout. We were able to confirm this change in a recent beta build of the app, and you can try it as well, but it seems like a server-side rollout and could take some time to arrive.
