US Edition
iOS 26.4 Beta 2 Now Lets iPhones Send Encrypted RCS Messages to Android — Here's How It Works
iOS 26.4 beta 2 introduces a toggle and lock icon for encrypted Rich Communication Services messaging, with support varying by carrier and requiring Google Messages beta on Android.
- Apple and Google today began testing end-to-end encrypted RCS between iPhone and Android, rolling out support to developers and iPhone users with iOS 26.4 beta 2.
- Last March, Apple announced it would add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages after introducing RCS features with iOS 18 and iOS 18.1 to enable typing indicators and read receipts.
- IPhone testers can enable the beta in Settings > Messages > RCS Messaging, activating `End-to-End Encryption `, which adds a lock icon to green-bubble threads and Android users see the same lock.
- Beta testing may cause message delivery issues, service interruptions and other bugs, and RCS encryption will not ship with iOS 26.4 but arrive in a future iOS 26 update enabled by default.
- By aligning with the GSMA profile, the test applies end-to-end encryption across platforms, advancing cross-platform privacy parity as iMessage has supported end-to-end encryption since 2011.
16 Articles
16 Articles
iPhone users can test encrypted RCS texts to Android in iOS 26.4 beta 2
After the first beta was iPhone to iPhone only, the second iOS 26.4 developer beta lets iPhones and Androids trade fully encrypted RCS messages for the first time.RCS support will be extended to include end-to-end encryptionYou may recall that in the first iOS 26.4 developer beta, Apple introduced end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for RCS messaging. You may also remember that it was extremely limited and only worked between iPhones with iMessage disa…
iOS 26.4 Beta Adds End-to-End Encryption for iPhone-to-Android RCS Texts
With the second iOS 26.4 beta, Apple and Google have started testing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for RCS messages exchanged between iPhone and Android users. Apple started testing E2EE for RCS in the first beta, but the feature was limited to iPhone-to-iPhone communications with iMessage turned off. In this beta, iPhone users can send encrypted messages to Android users.
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