After years of flexibility, Google Messages is eradicating the one SMS change thousands and thousands depend on

Google Messages is about to discontinue a useful feature for particular person conversations which lets customers select to make use of conventional SMS and MMS messaging for explicit contacts as a substitute of relying solely on Rich Communication Services (RCS).

First reported by Android Authority, Google is making ready to take away the choice that permits customers to modify particular conversations between RCS and SMS/MMS. The report highlighted that current beta updates for Google Messages point out the corporate is phasing out this setting, and customers will not have the ability to handle messaging protocols on a per-contact foundation.

But this function may not stick round for lengthy.

For context, SMS stands for Short Message Service and is the fundamental text-only messaging that’s been round because the Nineties. MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) builds on SMS by permitting you to ship photographs and brief movies, however each are restricted and fairly primary by at present’s requirements. RCS — which now helps cross‑platform messaging with iPhones (Apple added RCS assist in current iOS releases, and RCS finish‑to‑finish encryption arrived in 2026) — allows you to ship excessive‑res pictures and movies, see when somebody is typing, get learn receipts, create huge group chats, and extra. RCS works over Wi-Fi or data, making regular texting feel a lot more like popular chat apps such as WhatsApp or iMessage.

Although RCS is normally, these days, the usual for messaging on Android, it could on occasion encounter issues or be affected by spam. In the previous, the app included an in depth resolution within the type of a change discovered within the particular person chat settings, enabling customers to revert a selected dialog again to the older SMS system with out affecting the remainder of RCS.

Clues that this flexibility is being eliminated had been discovered within the newest beta model of Google Messages. Reviewers seen new wording and hidden notifications within the app that trace that the choice to modify between RCS and SMS for particular person chats goes away.

“The ‘Only ship SMS & MMS messages’ setting goes away. Switch now, or let it replace routinely.”

What this implies to your textual content messages

For odd customers, the lack of the person contact toggle means having to undertake an ‘all-or-nothing’ technique. After the replace has been rolled out on a large scale, it can develop into much less handy to handle the way you textual content your contacts who trigger connection bugs or are spam. If you encounter points with RCS or obtain spam, you possibly can nonetheless take steps corresponding to blocking undesirable contacts or reporting spam messages directly within Google Messages. These built-in instruments aid you preserve management over your conversations and restrict disruptions, even when switching protocols for particular person contacts is not out there.

When the change takes impact, customers eager to keep away from RCS for a selected chat will solely have a few alternate options left.

You can flip off RCS utterly all through the app, however you may lose options corresponding to end-to-end encryption, learn receipts, and the power to share high-quality pictures in all of your different conversations.

You can depend upon the app’s native fallback function, which routinely defaults to plain SMS and MMS solely after an RCS message supply formally fails—normally on account of weak mobile or knowledge protection.

Beyond this upcoming settings shift, Google Messages has continued to roll out modern interface improvements, and with producers like Samsung fully migrating users from legacy proprietary apps over to Google Messages, it capabilities because the common default messaging hub for almost your complete Android ecosystem—making interface changes like this impactful to an enormous world consumer base.

Google has not but mounted a particular date for the change, however the beta indicators point out that the transfer away from particular person SMS overrides is progressing down the pipeline. Bear in thoughts although, it would by no means make it out of beta.

Typically, new options and modifications launched in beta variations of Google Messages can take wherever from just a few weeks to a few months to succeed in all customers, relying on the velocity of the rollout. Users ought to anticipate to see this replace progressively as Google pushes the change to everybody through future app updates.