Using RCS with Google Messages on GrapheneOS

mazenetic

Is anyone aware of any VOIPs that support RCS? That would be a great workaround having a privacy focused VOIP with RCS. I've been daydreaming about Proton releasing a VOIP product for a long time.

litlelilim

On 2026011000 for the Pixel 10, RCS is broken again.

de0u

litlelilim On 2026011000 for the Pixel 10, RCS is broken again.

Which carrier?

user5678

litlelilim

For me as well (Tmobile)

Uninstall Messages app
Clear Storage Cache of Google Play services
Follow the steps from the Tmobile temporary fix from earlier in this thread, reinstalling the 1st apk, setting permissions, reinstalling the 2nd .apkm

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/1868

Working again.

5rlyn

litlelilim happened to me as well (Mint). Steps referenced above brought it back, but hopefully this isn't the return of "reinstall every 36hrs"

litlelilim

de0u
T-mobile, I am trying to redo the steps suggested previously, but I am no longer seeing the "Allow Restricted Settings" in App Info

cb474

user5678 Yeah, it failed for me this morning as well. T-Mobile, Pixel 8. It had been working for about a month and a half.

My steps to get back to things working were to delete Google Messages; install 0241120_00_RC07 using the APKMirror app; set Messages as the default SMS app before launching it; launch Messages and check that RCS was connected; update to 20250311_04_RC01; reboot; check Etouffee in the debug menu and make sure it is provisioned to true.

A couple notes about the steps you suggest: 1) I did not clear storage and cache for Google Play services. That has never been necessary for me, when using the various workaround based on installing old versions of Messags. 2) I did not allow Alarms and Reminders in the app settings for the Messages. I have never had to do that to get RCS to show as connected, although I've seen others mention that in the past. 3) If you use the .apkm bundle version of Messages from APKMirror and install them with the APKMirror app, they are properly signed and installed. This means that you don't have to go through the step of allowing restriced settings, to be able to make Messages the default SMS app. That option will be available right away.

I am having a weird thing now though. The first time I used @Turtacular's method to get connected and get a version of Messages that doesn't reset every 36 hours, I did not have to reboot after updating to 20250311_04_RC01 in oder to get Etouffee to true. Now I do have to reboot at that point. And after I reboot, when I go to RCS settings in the Messages settings, I see "RCS chats aren't available for this device. No compatible SIM card detected." And yet, RCS is working, both in individual and group messages. It's super weird. One consequence of this is that if I want to change any of the default RCS settings, I have to do that after I install 20241120_00_RC07 and get RCS to "connected," but before I update to 20250311_04_RC01 to get Etouffee to true. It's very odd and not confidence inspiring.

BuckWylde What version of Messages are you using to get it working? I really hope this is not what's going to happen to all of us now.

user5678

litlelilim

GrapheneOS>Apps>Messages>SMS app
Attempting to select Yes will give a warning that it is not available. After the warning, you should be able to allow restricted settings in the top right 3-dot menu. After that, SMS app can be set to Yes

litlelilim

user5678
Perfect! Thank you!

BuckWylde

5rlyn In the last couple of days my Mint RCS experience has returned to the dreaded 36-hour cycle. Ugh.

cb474

DeletedUser688 It's crazy that this is the most interacted with discussion on this forum. Says a lot about googles (in construction) walled garden.

RCS is not a Google thing. RCS is an internationally agreed upon standard, by the world's mobile services operators, to replace SMS as the mode of carrier based messaging. It happens that right now, on Android, the only way RCS is supported is through Google Messages and on some carriers through Google's backend. But this is because for years and years, carriers and Apple dragged their feet on finalizing the RCS standard and rolling it out. So Google created their own backend for RCS and rolled it out first to try to force everyone else's hand. It could have been different (and probably a lot better) if Apple and the carriers and tried to contructively work together instead.

I think the reason this thread is the most active thread in the forum, by a couple orders of magnitude, is because it is a real flaw in GrapheneOS that it does not support fully support carrier based messaging, which now includes RCS. Supporting carrier based messaging should be a basic element of any real mobile OS. In addition, because of the lack of support for RCS, many people who initially enabled RCS when it rolled out are stuck in a situation where their group messages (in particular with iPhone users) break when RCS breaks and they can't fall back to SMS/MMS, so they are stuck trying to keep RCS working, either by workarounds with Google Messages or by going back to stock Android. The way that GrapheneOS ends up breaking group messages in carrier based messaging is a serious bug. It undermines basic usability of GrapheneOS as a mobile OS.

aaravchen

cb474

. 2) I did not allow Alarms and Reminders in the app settings for the Messages. I have never had to do that to get RCS to show as connected, although I've seen others mention that in the past.

That's pretty surprising, I've never heard of it working for anyone without this permission. The Alar!s & Reminders permission is used for waking the device when it's sleeping (e.g. plugged in idle at night for a long time) so that RCS will reprovision. Maybe you've gotten lucky and is never needed to reprovision while the phone was otherwise idle?

3) If you use the .apkm bundle version of Messages from APKMirror and install them with the APKMirror app, they are properly signed and installed. This means that you don't have to go through the step of allowing restriced settings, to be able to make Messages the default SMS app. That option will be available right away.

The one first fromTurtacular isn't an apkm, and that's where you would first be trying to grant the SMS permission. The second one from Turtacular's method is an apkm, but my experience was that it also required manually allowing the restricted permissions before I could grant SMS permissions. I'm not sure if it is actually a Google Play signed apkm bundle or not, or whether it's a result of using the APKMirror installer app, but either way I still had to manually grant the restricted permissions access.

Turtacular

At this point, I'm on my last try for RCS to work without upkeep. I was able to get mine fixed again using the same method I posted after the recent breaking in case anyone was seeking another data point.

My questions at this point for users and devs:

Do we know of a sure way to completely deregister from RCS and immediately signal to other clients that our number is no longer RCS capable? If the 30 day wait is necessary for de-registration, does it achieve the aforementioned?
I've had issues with the default GrapheneOS messaging app and some with Quik as well regarding MMS. Fluke or flaw? What would be the next best in terms of (client, not protocol) security? I am aware that privacy is a wash.

cb474

FlareHeart I am wondering if maybe staying on the 20241120 build is the way to go? Or does that one time out its connection after the 36 hours?

You can't do that, because 20241120_00_RC07 won't provision Etouffee to true. You need 20241120_00_RC07 to get RCS to say "connected" in the settings. But then you have to update to a newer version to get Etouffee to provision to true. Both steps are needed to get RCS working.

At first people were just updating to the latest version of Messages to get Etouffee to true. But then @Turtacular figured out that 20250311_04_RC01 will provision Etouffee to true without causing the reset every 36 hours.

Now that people have had 20250311_04_RC01 fail and are redoing the workaround, we will see if it lasts longer than 36 hours.

Turtacular Do we know of a sure way to completely deregister from RCS and immediately signal to other clients that our number is no longer RCS capable? If the 30 day wait is necessary for de-registration, does it achieve the aforementioned?

Just to be clear, this is entirely a group message issue. Individual threads immediately fall back to SMS. But yeah, if there were a way to have group messages, especially with iPhone users, stop trying to send RCS to phones where RCS is disabled, that would be great to know. I am fully prepared to stop using RCS if there is a solution to this problem that does not involve getting all iPhone users to delete the group message and then create a new one. That is just not practically feasible. It involves too many people and I have many family members who I don't think I could even explain to them how to do that.

Turtacular I've had issues with the default GrapheneOS messaging app and some with Quik as well regarding MMS. Fluke or flaw? What would be the next best in terms of (client, not protocol) security? I am aware that privacy is a wash.

I think once you're using SMS/MMS there really is no security to speak of. The best you can do is have an app that gets regular updates for any bugs discovered and maybe has some features like spam blocking. In that regard Google Messages is still probably the best. It is also probaby more likely to not have the MMS issues you describe. I used it for a long time, before I ever made the mistake of enabling RCS.

user5678

Turtacular

I don't speak from any position of knowledge, but I have not seen anyone on this thread with insider knowledge of Google's workings.

My hypothesis is that now that RCS is being done by the carriers' jibe server instead of google-owned jibe server, de-registering your number with Google.com is less likely to have any effect whatsoever.

My only evidence to support my hypothesis is that Android (not GrapheneOS) users all over the world complain of the same problem on various carriers with no solution offered by google.

for example, this recent ranting thread from
https://support.google.com/messages/thread/387593741?hl=en&sjid=10075598787746446526-NC

I am no Apple fan-boy, but back in the Steve Jobs era, if Apple had released something that failed this hard, Steve Jobs would have ripped someone's head off. You couldnt even Copy and Paste on the iphone 2!!! They didnt enable copy/paste until it actually worked, all the time.

When this current work-around method finally stops being successful, Im planning to rip off the bandaid -- disable rcs and "de-register" (to uncertain effect) and just warn any existing group chats that i will never ever ever receive their messages, and please contact me another way

FlareHeart

I also experienced the failure of it this morning on Lum mobile (Canadian carrier).

I was able to get it working again by @Turtacular's method as well, but I am also seeing the "RCS Chats aren't available for this device. No compatible SIM card detected." Despite the RCS being connected and seeming to function. I am wondering if maybe staying on the 20241120 build is the way to go? Or does that one time out its connection after the 36 hours?

aaravchen

FlareHeart

I'm on T-Mobile and had working RCS via Turtacular's method for the last couple months. It just broke this afternoon though.

I tried going back thru the original method from scratch and it didn't work, however playing around with seems to have gotten it working again.

Before you uninstall your current (not working) version, clear the storage for the app.
After installing the first version in Turtacular's method, and before opening it, make sure you grant all permissions.
2.a. Especially and including the SMS permission, which requires you to try and fail to enable it by clicking the greyed out "Allow" once or twice, then going back to the main Google Messages app page and picking the three dot menu that appear after you attempted to grant the blocked permission, then returning to grant the SMS permission.
2.b. Also make sure you grant the Alarms & Reminders permission that isnt under the Permissions sub-menu, but is on the main app page.
Open the app and set it as the default SMS app. Wait with it open until you get a notification that RCS is "enabled" (the pop up a the the bottom).
3.a. If it takes more than a minute, reboot. Open the app back up after reboot and give it up to 5 minutes.
After the second Turtacular version is installed, wait 5 minutes and if Etouffe in the debug menu doesnt say true, or a conversation you know is RCS doesn't switch to say it's RCS a second or two after you leave and re-enter the conversation view from the main conversation list.
4.a. If it still hasn't happened after 5 minutes, reboot.

I didn't ever have to clear storage, do the reboots, or actually grant the permissions before opening the app the first time when it worked before, but I did now.

EDIT: typo and clarity

DeletedUser662

cb474 Just to be clear, this is entirely a group message issue. Individual threads immediately fall back to SMS. But yeah, if there were a way to have group messages, especially with iPhone users, stop trying to send RCS to phones where RCS is disabled, that would be great to know. I am fully prepared to stop using RCS if there is a solution to this problem that does not involve getting all iPhone users to delete the group message and then create a new one. That is just not practically feasible. It involves too many people and I have many family members who I don't think I could even explain to them how to do that.

This is unfortunately technically not just a group chat issue. Both times I switched to grapheneOS I had to switch back because of missing critical group chats with iOS people. The second time around it messed up an individual chat as well. What I believe happened is that the iOS user first messaged me by adding me back to a group chat. At that point his phone figured I was still on RCS somehow. Then when he sent me an individual message, it was an RCS message and I never received it. FWIW the individual message was in reply to an SMS and MMS message I sent him after the group RCS message.

Also, I had removed myself from all groups manually before deregistering via the app and then also via google's website. As far as I can tell, the deregistration is not immediate, and I doubt if it would even be foolproof after 30 days. Basically his phone checked when adding me back to the group and it still was told I was on RCS. Whether it's a google issue or apple issue I can't know, but I can't wait 30 days just to see if RCS truly deregisters.

user5678 When this current work-around method finally stops being successful, Im planning to rip off the bandaid -- disable rcs and "de-register" (to uncertain effect) and just warn any existing group chats that i will never ever ever receive their messages, and please contact me another way

It would be great if you can post here if you end up doing this and whether or not it actually resolves everything after 30 days

aaravchen

cb474

Just to be clear, this is entirely a group message issue. Individual threads immediately fall back to SMS. But yeah, if there were a way to have group messages, especially with iPhone users, stop trying to send RCS to phones where RCS is disabled, that would be great to know. I am fully prepared to stop using RCS if there is a solution to this problem that does not involve getting all iPhone users to delete the group message and then create a new one. That is just not practically feasible. It involves too many people and I have many family members who I don't think I could even explain to them how to do that.

For any other readers, I'm in whole hearted agreement with this.

The google link for "deregistering your number from RCS" was for a much older iteration of the RCS server implementation when the Google Messages app would fall back to using a Google provided server since most carriers didn't support it. It has never deregistered your number anywhere else, and that Google RCS fallback server seems to have been dropped as part of the Sept 19th 2025 full handoff to carriers.

So if you drop or lose RCS, you're simply unable to use any of the RCS groups unless someone in the group deletes the existing chat group and recreates it (so you're included via text instead of RCS). And until then, you won't get any of the messages anyone sends to those chats ever again (even after the 30 days I believe).

For one on one chats, if it had ever upgraded to RCS I found I wouldn't get any new messages from it for 30 days, or until I sent a non-RCS message. My number seemed to still be registered as RCS Available so others' phones would try to continue the one-on-one as RCS until it got an SMS/MMS that triggered it to break out of RCS.

EDIT: damn typos

cb474

user5678 I am no Apple fan-boy, but back in the Steve Jobs era, if Apple had released something that failed this hard, Steve Jobs would have ripped someone's head off.

Yeah, this is definitely in part an Apple problem. iMessage should have an option, like Google Messages, to fall back to SMS/MMS if an RCS message fails to deliver. The iOS devices that check the server, think a user is still on RCS, then send and RCS, will still see that after a while they never get the message received notice. At that point they could fall back. Of coures, Google Message also stupidly will fall back to SMS for individual messages, but not to MMS for group chats.

DeletedUser662 This is unfortunately technically not just a group chat issue. Both times I switched to grapheneOS I had to switch back because of missing critical group chats with iOS people. The second time around it messed up an individual chat as well. What I believe happened is that the iOS user first messaged me by adding me back to a group chat. At that point his phone figured I was still on RCS somehow. Then when he sent me an individual message, it was an RCS message and I never received it. FWIW the individual message was in reply to an SMS and MMS message I sent him after the group RCS message.

Huh, that has not been my experience with iPhone users, when RCS fails. In any case, it's sort of a description of the same problem. iMessage thinks a user is still on RCS and then fails to send messages as SMS/MMS.

It is pretty dumb that the system doesn't update right away to show the user is not on RCS. Why should it take 30 days?

starglider For GOS users in the US talking to iOS people, my strong recommendation is to use bluebubbles.app or openbubbles.app.

From the perspective of the iPhone user, does it appear that they are just texting with you at your regular phone number and they have no idea you're using a bubble app? What happens if you stop using the bubble app, will you just be back in broken RCS hell? (This does actually make me wonder if using a bubble app for a month or two, would convince the relevant iOS devices that you are no longer on RCS and then if you switched back to Google Messages with RCS disabled everything would be fine and back to using SMS/MMS in both individual and group chats with iPhone users.)

starglider

For what it's worth, RCS just seems like a total mess right now. Involving the carriers in this was always going to be a disaster. It's not even secure if you have an iOS device on the other end. I'm sure the GOS team will get it fully sorted eventually, but the carriers need to get their own acts together before it's reliable.

It's breaking constantly for people on stock as well. I made the decision to stay away from it completely to avoid silent failures and getting dropped from groups.

For GOS users in the US talking to iOS people, my strong recommendation is to use bluebubbles.app or openbubbles.app. The Apple people are happier, and you get actual encryption (it's not technically end-to-end with BlueBubbles, but you control the point of decryption/reencryption, so it's still safe). BlueBubbles is a bit more work to set up but seems very unlikely to get blocked by Apple. OpenBubbles is easier to set up but seems maybe to be skirting the edges of what Apple would allow if they discovered it. Either is trivial to set up for anyone who's capoble of setting up GOS.

At least in my world, all the Android people in the States are huge dorks like us and are happy to use Signal. Internationally, everyone uses WhatsApp. And restaurants, banks, and most automated systems still use plain SMS.

Just my two cents.

starglider

cb474 From the perspective of the iPhone user, does it appear that they are just texting with you at your regular phone number and they have no idea you're using a bubble app? What happens if you stop using the bubble app, will you just be back in broken RCS hell?

So this depends on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go. By default, your phone number will not be registered with iMessage; your identifier will be whatever email you used to register with iCloud. In practice, this doesn't really matter: you can just message them back from BlueBubbles, and they'll then see you in iMessage and be able to respond normally. If they add your email address to their iPhone contacts, they won't even see that it's actually your underlying email vs. phone number.

If you want the phone number to register with Apple as an iMessage account, that's a bit more involved. There are a bunch of different approaches (see here: https://guide.atbluebubbles.com/) but they all basically involve somehow tricking Apple into thinking that you're still using an iPhone with a given phone number. I came to GOS from iOS, so I have my old (and now inactive, because I have a new active SIM in my Pixel) Verizon SIM in the iPhone; the SIM is locked and the phone is in airplane mode. Because it can't get on the network, it's unaware that the SIM is now actually invalid. But since the phone is online via WiFi and contains a valid SIM, Apple has no reason to deregister the phone number from their database.

I don't think these shenanigans would solve the RCS deregistering issues, though. Apple's approach is really simple: they just keep a big lookup table of every cell phone number that's linked to an iPhone. Their messaging app checks that table to decide whether to send any given message via iMessage or the carrier. If it's not in the lookup, then there's a whole separate flow with the carrier to figure out if if it's RCS capable. I think they're completely disconnected processes, unfortunately.

FlareHeart

aaravchen

Thanks for this. Mine did the 36 hour timeout thing and I had to reinstall this morning. But I followed your procedure with the clears and reboots and the only difference was once I got the first (2024) version installed, I did have to reboot before it would try to connect (the RCS switch wasn't even available). After the reboot it sat at "connecting..." forever, so I turned RCS off and back on after waiting about 10-15 minutes and it connected immediately and checking the debug menu, it was even Etouffee: True (and a test message worked). So I think I am going to stick with the older version since it works and I'll wait to see if it doesn't time out on me.

cb474

aaravchen That's pretty surprising, I've never heard of it working for anyone without this permission. The Alar!s & Reminders permission is used for waking the device when it's sleeping (e.g. plugged in idle at night for a long time) so that RCS will reprovision. Maybe you've gotten lucky and is never needed to reprovision while the phone was otherwise idle?

Maybe it's because I have "app battery usage" in the settings for Messages set to "unrestricted." I mean, for any default SMS app to work properly, doesn't it always have to be running in the background? Most of the time my phone is asleep, but it always wakes when there is an incoming message. Messages would be kind of useless if it wasn't always running in the background.

aaravchen The one first fromTurtacular isn't an apkm, and that's where you would first be trying to grant the SMS permission.

@Turtacular linked to the .apk for that version of Google Messages, but there is also a .apkm for in on APKMirror. It was someone else before Turtacular, I forget who, who figured out you could use 20241120_00_RC07 to get RCS to the "connected" state. That person linked to the .apkm version. It's signed with the same signature as the Google Play app, which is why once installed you can update it from the Play Store to the latest version (this is also true of the .apk on APKMirror). Anyway, both the .apk and the .apkm work fine for getting RCS connected. It's the same app/version. But when the APKMirror app installs the .apkm, the system recognizes it as a properly installed and signed app, not as a sideloaded app, and so it does not require the "restricted permissions" setting to set Messages as the default SMS app. There's really no reason to prefer the .apk. I don't know why Turtacular linked to that rather than the .apkm. As I said, using the .apkm and the APKMirror app to install it saves you a few steps in the process of getting RCS working.

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