Samsung Messages app will be discontinued July 2026, switch to Google Messages

andrew129260 said:

Also no need for any of this, go to messages.google.com and they are all right there.

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Interesting, wasn't even aware of this as a long time Phone Link user. Trying it out now though.

andrew129260 said:

It is because Microsoft does not have rcs implemented in phone link.

Microsoft issue, not google messages. This will change soon as Samsung messages is now dead.

Also, no need for any of this, go to messages.google.com and they are all right there.

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Thanks, I was kind of thinking that some of the issues were related to RCS. I tried turning that off in the S25 Plus phone but that created some other issues - I can't remember what those were now.

I don't know about it being a Microsoft issue though, I'm not understanding that part. Is it a Microsoft issue because the MS phone add does not support Google Messages? Microsoft can say the same thing about Google Messages - that is it not compatible with the MS phone app. All I was trying to say is that the two of them don't work together all that well, at least they were not a few months ago. I finally was forced to turn off the MS Phone App and have not used it for like six months now.

I went to messages.google.com awhile back for help, and when I was through, I turned off the Microsoft Phone App as the fix. I was planning to go back and try again but so far I have not, as I have been trying to put out another fire. I plan on going back and trying again someday.

I'm not knocking Google Messages that much, I just preferer Samsung Messages, and I would still be using it today if it was not on death row. That's all I am saying.

FrancoDT said:

Interesting, wasn't even aware of this as a long time Phone Link user. Trying it out now though.

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5th favorite from the left...



EDIT: This does work pretty well.

neldog said:

5th favorite from the left...

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EDIT: This does work pretty well.

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It does, I just set it up on three PC's using my Vivaldi browser texting people and bouncing between all three machines. So far it's pretty smooth.

FrancoDT said:

It does, I just set it up on three PC's using my Vivaldi browser texting people and bouncing between all three machines. So far it's pretty smooth.

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Yeah, I have been using it for at least 6 months now - it does work well and this is a good point about Google Messages. I have this on my Samsung Tablet S9, (Wi-Fi only) and that is big, as I can now send and receive text messages with that now too.

Something else thats cool is because its a web app, if you say have an ipad / apple device you can use the split view feature and text from there.

And the newer samsung and pixel phones support air drop as well.

You can also pin the tab in your favorite browser and always have access to it.

As for rcs support for microsoft, that was not meant as dig against them. Its just now that there is only one messaging platform to focus on it should be easier to support, or even use the web wrapper that google officially has. Even if google refuses to play a long for some weird reason, it should be easy to bypass me thinks.

The world is slowly healing. Well in this way anyway. Also yes I understand the text and blue bubbles thing is strictly an american thing. It's okay. RCS is still a vast improvement for everyone over sms. Also rcs is (mostly) open source. Google is a lot of things, but RCS is truly a game changer.

Want all the nerdy details? Read it here:

andrew129260 said:

Gmail is easy to be pretty clean. I find it funny you show aol which is notorious for ads in the inbox. If you don't like gmail you probably have all the categories turned on. To turn off the Promotions tab and other tabs (Social, Updates, Forums) in Gmail, go to Settings > See all settings > Inbox, uncheck the undesired categories under "Categories," and click Save Changes at the bottom


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Google messages:

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So can I.....you can make each contact different as well if I want. I have some contacts make a sound, some vibrate and make noise, some silent, some just vibrate. Lots of choice....You can even bubble conversations.

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It is because microsoft does not have rcs implemented in phone link.

Microsoft issue, not google messages. This will change soon as samsung messages is now dead.

Also no need for any of this, go to messages.google.com and they are all right there.

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RCS disabled it still doesn't work well with Phone Link.
Samsung Messages just *works*

If I had to choose between one or the other I'd keep SM and not use Google Messages at all

BrianInEngland said:

RCS disabled it still doesn't work well with Phone Link.
Samsung Messages just *works*

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Again, using phone link will just send sms. You should not disable rcs. You are literally going to the 90s when you do that.

It is much better to not use phone link at all for text messages. Or use them for notification only. You can reply using phone link but it will be sent as sms. I just tried it. Use the google messages website until microsoft adds rcs support.

andrew129260 said:

Again, using phone link will just send sms. You should not disable rcs. You are literally going to the 90s when you do that.

It is much better to not use phone link at all for text messages. Or use them for notification only. You can reply using phone link but it will be sent as sms. I just tried it. Use the google messages website until microsoft adds rcs support.

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No I'm happy with SMS, been using it for years. I'm not going to be using a website to send texts
I don't care about RCS at all.

BrianInEngland said:

No I'm happy with SMS, been using it for years. I'm not going to be using a website to send texts
I don't care about RCS at all.

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Well just like samsung messages you will eventually have to move to it. Classic Sms support will be removed eventually.

But you can keep using phone link to reply to messages with google messages if need be, just will be sms for now.

Samsung Messages wasn't included with the S25 nor S26, but can be downloaded (at the moment but that will change)

I'm hoping that a software update doesn't remove it as it's not part of the firmware.