RCS group chats and Lessms

Lessms is a focused SMS/MMS app. Android doesn't allow third-party apps to use RCS — here's exactly what that means, and how to switch without losing messages.

The short version

RCS ("chat features" in Google Messages) is the modern messaging layer with typing indicators, read receipts, and rich group chats. On Android, access to it is gated: the RCS APIs are not open to app developers, and only apps on Google's allowlist can use them. In practice that has meant Google Messages, plus a handful of handset makers' own apps under their own arrangements with Google. That's a platform restriction, not a Lessms choice, and it applies to every independent SMS app equally.

If you had RCS in Samsung Messages, you weren't imagining it. Samsung's app supported RCS for years — first through carrier "advanced messaging", then, on newer Galaxy devices, through Google's own RCS network. That access came with being Samsung. It is also why the shutdown of Samsung Messages leaves so few options: no independent app can take over that part of the job, because none of us can get at it.

When you make Lessms your default messaging app, your one-to-one texts keep working — people messaging you from Google Messages fall back to plain SMS automatically. The thing that does not carry over is RCS group chats.

Do this before you switch In Google Messages, tap your profile picture → Messages settings → RCS chats → turn RCS off. This tells Google's servers to stop delivering messages to a mailbox you'll no longer be checking. If you've already switched or no longer have the phone, you can deregister your number at messages.google.com/disable-chat.

Why turning RCS off first matters

RCS registration doesn't end the moment you change your default app. During the transition, group members' phones can keep sending to your dormant RCS inbox — messages that never reach you, often without the sender seeing any failure. Turning RCS off first tells everyone's phones to use SMS/MMS for you instead, so nothing lands in limbo. Even so, it can take up to 30 days for existing RCS group chats to drop you completely.

What happens to your group chats

Existing RCS group threads live on Google's messaging infrastructure and can't follow you to any third-party app. After you switch, your groups have three options:

  1. Start a new group text. Anyone in the group can create a new group message that includes you — it will run over MMS, which every phone supports. You lose read receipts and typing indicators, and photos are more compressed, but it works with no new apps.
  2. Move the group to a messaging app. For chatty groups, apps like Signal or WhatsApp are honestly a better fit than MMS — full-quality media, reactions, and end-to-end encryption on every platform, including iPhones.
  3. Keep the RCS group without you. The group continues in Google Messages; you just won't be in that thread. Members can still reach you individually over SMS.

What still works, unchanged

Why we think the trade is worth it Lessms exists to put you back in control of your texts: junk rules, an allow list, and a message inbox that only contains what you want in it. If RCS group chats are the center of your messaging life, Lessms may not be the right default app for you — and we'd rather say that plainly than surprise you.

Will Lessms ever support RCS?

The moment Google offers third-party apps a real RCS API, we'll evaluate it seriously. Until then, no third-party messaging app on Android — not just Lessms — can send or receive RCS.

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