Google recently upgraded its Android Messages app to provide iMessage style texting for users on its platform. While Google has released RCS for users in France and the UK, those elsewhere are left at the mercy of carriers. A method week was discovered last week, which allows users to forcibly connect their device to Google’s implementation of RCS without a hitch. Here’s how to use it.

RCS on Android

Note: This also works to reset RCS if you already have it enabled traditionally.

How to force enable RCS on your Android Phone 

  1. Enable in Google Messages Beta by heading to the Play Store and joining from there.
  2. Update to get the latest version of Google Messages Beta,
  3. Check if you have Carrier services installed and up to date.
  4. Install Activity Launcher for Android.
  5. Turn off WiFi and clear the storage and check for both Messages and Carrier services so as to reset your phone to a clean slate. 
  6. Open Activity Launcher and select “All Activities.”
  7. Look for the Messages app.
  8. Under Messages, look for “Set RCS Flags” 
  9. Under the “ACS URL” section, select ‘”http://rcs-acs-prod-us.sandbox google.com/.” option.
  10. For the OTP Pattern use – Your\sMessenger\sverification\scode\sis\sG-(\d{6})
  11. Apply and restart your phone
  12. Open Messages – you’ll find a prompt to upgrade your messaging experience to the new advanced messaging experience. 

How To Activate Google RCS.

If you are successful, you should see an odd sign at the top next to the search icon. You’ll now proceed to setup RCS on your phone. Click ‘Agree’ and it will verify your phone number. Follow the prompts and if you’re successful, it will show you are connected under settings.

How To Activate Google RCS.

There are disclaimers on using this feature.

  • It works with the beta Messages app in my experience so that is key.
  • It seems only to work with one SIM card at a time so if you have a dual SIM phone, you’ll have to choose which phone number to verify for RCS.
  • Texts that are sent via the RCS protocol are labelled in blue to differentiate them from regular SMS.
  • RCS needs mobile data or Wi-Fi to work so as to send media and texts. If your data is off, your texts will be send via regular SMS and you’ll incur carrier charges.
  • Sending texts while via RCS does not eat into your airtime. (cool huh?)

This is a pretty cool thing Google has done here and it will finally make Messages be at par with iMessage. This has the potential to rival WhatsApp since any phone running Android and has Google Services has Messages so the potential is huge. Google might not have had a stellar record with chatting apps like Allo in the past, but

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