Have you ever had a photo arrive as a plain text link instead of an image? Or watched the screen erupt when someone reacted to a message? Several of those RCS irritations in Google Messages come down to settings, not bugs. Four of them are worth knowing about, and one of them deserves a look before the rest.
Check how Google Messages resends a failed RCS message
Start here, because this is the one setting on the list with a real privacy consequence. When an RCS message will not send, Google Messages can fall back to ordinary SMS or MMS instead. How it does that is up to you.
- Open Google Messages and tap your avatar.
- Tap Messages settings.
- Tap RCS chats.
- Open Resend messages and choose how the app handles automatically resending as text (SMS/MMS).
The choice matters most for messages with an attachment. Android Police’s writer avoids the option that sends media as an SMS with a link. Android Police notes that Google warns such media could be sent as a public link it doesn’t control. That makes the fallback you pick a real decision rather than a formality.
Google’s own support pages document the related manual route. There is a Switch to text action for a message that will not go through over RCS. If your sends fail constantly rather than occasionally, the fallback setting is treating a symptom. We have covered RCS error 3100 failures and what to try separately.
Pick HD+ photo quality once and it stays picked
Google Messages offers two media quality levels when you attach a photo to an RCS chat. Tapping the HD button switches you to HD+, which sends media at full resolution. Standard HD sends faster and uses less data.
The part worth knowing is that the app remembers. Android Police reports picking HD+ a single time and finding that the app applied the choice to later images as well. Google’s support documentation says the same thing in its own words. The option you select is saved and used for images you send in the future.
So this is a one-time decision, not a per-photo chore. Two caveats, though. It is an RCS-only control, so SMS and MMS attachments are unaffected. And full-resolution sends will use more of your data allowance.
@mentions still get through a muted group chat
Muting a noisy group chat usually means missing the one message that was actually for you. In an all-RCS group chat, @mentions solve that. Type @ or a contact’s name in a group chat to flag a message for that person.
Per Android Police’s testing, a mention generates a notification on the recipient’s phone even when that person has the group chat muted. Flip it around and the mechanic works in your favour. You can mute a busy group without missing messages that @mention you.
One honesty note here. This tip comes from Android Police’s hands-on testing rather than Google’s own documentation. Test it with one group before you rely on it.
Turn off the expressive animations
Screen effects, reaction effects and animated emoji can get distracting fast. There is a single switch for most of it. Tap your profile picture and open Messages settings, then turn off Show expressive animations. That is the exact wording Google uses on its own support page.
Android Police reports that screen and reaction effects stop after that, and animated emoji revert to regular emoji. Reactions still animate slightly. Unlike the media quality control, this one is not RCS-specific, so it applies to your SMS conversations too.
The rest of it, in brief
- Where almost everything lives: your avatar > Messages settings. RCS-specific controls sit one level deeper, under RCS chats.
- What applies where: media quality and resend behaviour are RCS controls. Mentions are confirmed working in all-RCS group chats, and the animations toggle also covers SMS conversations.
- Two more changes we have already covered: the swipe-gesture reversal and the redesigned floating menu with selective copying.
- Labels can shift: settings wording can change between app updates. If a label does not match, look for the closest equivalent in the same menu rather than assuming the feature is gone.
Sources: Android Police, Google Help (media quality), Google Help (switch to text), Google Help (expressive animations)
