Sending photos via RCS is about to get better in Google Messages

By Patrick Hearn Published November 5, 2024

Have you ever taken a jaw-dropping photo, only for it to lose a bit of something when you send it to friends? A lot of messaging services compress images to reduce bandwidth consumption. While useful in practice, it does make it harder to send images at full resolution — but that could soon be a thing of the past. Google Messages is apparently gaining the ability to send images without losing any quality at all.

In an APK teardown, the team at Android Authority discovered a feature hidden within the code that will let you choose what resolution you want to send a photo at. If this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because WhatsApp has the same feature.

The two options appear in a toggle between HD and HD+ in the Messages Photo Picker. If you select HD, the images will send more quickly but at reduced quality. If you send the image at its original quality (HD+), it will use more data and potentially take a few more seconds to go through. The option should appear for any conversations in Google Messages using RCS.

Google hasn’t made an official statement about the feature, but considering it was found in the latest beta of the Messages app, it probably isn’t too far off. This update will make it easier to send family photos back and forth, especially as the holidays approach. If you’re sending a silly meme, maybe drop the resolution a bit — but when you’re trying to share a photo of your nephew in his first Halloween costume, you want every pixel it can handle.

RCS has caught on and spread like wildfire, resulting in many third-party messaging services — like Verizon Messages and Samsung Messages — encouraging users to make the switch to Google Messages instead.