How to force enable iMessage style texting on your Android Phone
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With RCS, Google has upgraded its Android Messages app to offer iMessage style texting for users on its platform. While Google has rolled out RCS for users in the UK and France, those elsewhere are left at the whims of carriers. A method this week was discovered, allowing users to forcibly connect their device to Google’s implementation of RCS without a hitch. Here’s how to use it.
(P.S, this also works to reset RCS if you already have it enabled traditionally.)
How to force enable RCS on your Android Phone
- Enable in Google Messages Beta by heading to the Play Store and joining from there.
- Update to get the latest version of Google Messages Beta,
- Check if you have Carrier services installed and up to date.
- Install Activity Launcher for Android.
- 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.
- Open Activity Launcher and select “All Activities.”
- Look for the Messages app.
- Under Messages, look for “Set RCS Flags”
- In ACS URL, use http://rcs-acs-prod-us.sandbox.google.com/
- For the OTP Pattern use – Your\sMessenger\sverification\scode\sis\sG-(\d{6})
- Apply and restart your phone
- Open Messages – you’ll find a prompt to upgrade your messaging experience to the new advanced messaging experience.
I couldn’t test it on my device because — well I have RCS enabled anyway — but it should work for users outside the UK and it worked earlier in this year for resetting RCS (just skip out anything with Activity Launcher if it’s already enabled for you). While some have reported a few random disconnects, those are likely flaws with Google’s implementation of RCS which the firm is patching out — explaining why it hasn’t rolled this feature out to begin with.
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