Google has recentlythrown its weight behind RCS messaging, toting it as a rival of thebest instant messaging apps on Android. Google Messages played a massive role in popularizing RCS, and was greatly helped by the app’s availability on our favorite Android phones as well as devices at multiple price points. To stay competitive, Google regularly updates the app as well, and a new image captioning feature seems to be in the cards.
On all the popular chat apps like Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc., you’re able to type out a caption to accompany the media you share. Such captions give the intended recipients additional context to understand the image or video, helping you tie them to the conversation easily. Late in 2023, WhatsApp was among the last few apps to add support for forwarding media to other chats with the caption in tow. Given its similarities to such apps, you would imagine that’s the case with images shared in RCS chats on Google Messages as well.
Unfortunately, the app doesn’t support image captioning, and additional information shows up in a separate message either before or after you send the media file. If you share multiple images at once via Messages, captioning all the files can quickly become a chore. Thankfully, Google app tinkerer and feature spotter@AssembleDebug on X(formerly Twitter) spotted a flag which enables caption support for media in RCS on Google Messages.
Once the flag is force-enabled, you’re able to see the caption accompanying the image as a part of the same message. Unlike Chrome where the flags are easily accessible from the browser address bar, toggling flags in other Google apps like Messages is a more complicated process, especially on non-rooted devices. Moreover, Google doesn’t specify timelines for upcoming changes to its suite of apps, making the feature’s tentative rollout date anyone’s best guess.
In the interim, Google has other new features for RCS users in the Messages app, such asdual-SIM support in chats. The feature simplifies the process of switching between your installed SIM cards if you need to send RCS messages with either card. It also means the app now supports activating RCS on both SIMs. It’s also flag-protected, but it remains functional once enabled.
