Observe these steps to change your default Android textual content messaging app

One of many lesser-appreciated options of Google’s Android mobile operating system is the flexibility to change your default apps with out fuss. Your default internet browser, cellphone app, caller ID and spam app, digital assistant app, home app, and Brief Message Service (SMS) texting app are all simply interchangable with third-party options.

There are lots of, many reasons to be critical of Google, however I am going to give credit score the place credit score is due: the tech large has accomplished a fairly good job of constructing Android a versatile OS, messaging apps included. If you happen to’re questioning tips on how to make the swap to a third-party text messaging app, otherwise you merely need to check out one thing that is not Google Messages, then all it will take is a few purposeful display faucets.

The best way to swap out your default SMS texting app on Android

Your complete course of solely takes a number of moments to finish

With a view to swap from one Android texting app to another one, comply with these steps:

1. Obtain a third-party textual content messaging app from the Google Play Store, should you do not have already got one put in in your Android cellphone.
2. Find this third-party texting app from inside your cellphone’s app drawer, and faucet on its icon to launch the software program.
3. Instantly, you will be greeter with a splash display. You will need to faucet on the Set default SMS app button.
4. From the listing introduced, faucet on the textual content messaging app of your selection.
5. Faucet on Set as default.

And identical to that, whichever texting app you’ve got chosen will begin working as your new default — it will robotically replace and sync up all of your current textual content message threads, with no further enter required. The method to return to your beforehand chosen texting app is equivalent, however merely in reverse.

If you happen to’re in search of some wonderful third-party messaging app suggestions, Pocket-lint has a dedicated article on the subject. Briefly, some in style choices embody:

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Google is the undisputed chief relating to fashionable Android textual content messaging

That being stated, third-party SMS apps nonetheless have their place out there

In recent times, we have seen Google push aggressively to make its personal Messages app the de facto texting expertise on Android. The tech large has emphasised its personal implementation of the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol, and has brokered offers with giants like Samsung to include the service on new phones by default.

The truth is, because it presently stands, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) or ‘vanilla’ model of Android doesn’t even have an actively maintained app for messaging family and friends. As an alternative, it is as much as smartphone OEMs and third-party builders to fill the Google-sized void within the room.

Fortunately, whereas the present collection of various SMS apps is not huge, the obtainable choices are nonetheless being frequently up to date. If the newer RCS texting commonplace continues to realize trade prominence — and it’s a safe bet that it’ll do so — then I can envision an eventual RCS-powered renaissance within the Android texting app scene.

After all, as a prerequisite, this may require Google to open up its distinctive taste of the RCS protocol to third-parties within the type of a developer API. In the meanwhile, the vast majority of texting apps on Android fall into one in every of two camps: people who depend on the now-ancient SMS commonplace, and people funded by deep pockets that may afford to construct proprietary messaging applied sciences à la WhatsApp, Discord, and others.

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