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, only Google's own Messages app is allowed to use it — Google has never opened the RCS APIs to other messaging apps. That's a platform restriction, not a less.ms choice, and it applies to every third-party SMS app equally.
When you make less.ms 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- One-to-one texting with everyone — Android and iPhone. Senders fall back to SMS automatically.
- MMS group messages, pictures, and audio clips.
- Verification codes, delivery notifications, and everything else that arrives as SMS.
- All of less.ms's filtering — which applies to every message above.
Why we think the trade is worth it
less.ms 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, less.ms may not be the right default app for you — and we'd rather say that plainly than surprise you.
Will less.ms 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 less.ms — can send or receive RCS.