Yesterday I learned about a problem two people are having sending photos on the Android Messages app. Bob can send photos to Alice but Alice can’t send photos to Bob. Both Bob and Alice can send photos to and from other people, only that one situation doesn’t work. Neither of them are very technical in knowing their various settings relating to SMS/MMS. Bob speculates that it might be related to his accidentally marking a message from Alice as spam once (but still gets text texts, just not photos). Alice is on T-Mobile, Bob is on Boost.
Any clues about resolving this, given the limited info?
(Related or not info, when Bob texts Alice, his messages arrive twice.)
Maybe we should be clear about what message app they’re actually using: is it Google Messages or some other?
I really hate to rely on an AI explanation, but this is what came up when I tried to find out the difference, and I didn’t see a more authoritative cite:
FYI I have a MotoEdge 2023 (Android 14). I don’t use the native texting app. I’ve used Textra for years. No problem sending pictures. Plus it has a bunch of cool features.
I’m on Samsung and had used the built-in “Android messages” until about 6 months ago when they started getting very pushy about upgrading to “Google Messages”. I held off for awhile but evenutlly gave in just to make the nags go away. Bastards.
Anyhow, that upgrade didn’t really change much visible beyond the name of the app. But did alter the interface as it applied to pix.
I’ll suggest that if the OP’s two players are on different flavors of messaging app, putting them both on the same one may, just may, pay off.
I just checked, and my phone has two message apps installed: Google’s (which is what I use) and Samsung’s. I assume they both came pre-installed (it’s been about 4.5 years since I got the phone), and I don’t remember whether, when, or why I chose to use one over the other.
What exactly does “can’t send photos” mean? A message containing a photo from Alice to Bob arrives, but the photo is removed from it? Or it doesn’t arrive at all?
What if Alice sends a long text-only message (longer than 160 characters)? What if she sends a message containing an audio clip? I’m trying to determine if all MMS messages fail, or just ones that contain photos.
Tell them to email it to each other instead, or share it via the Google Photos app (they’ll both need a Google account and that app installed). Or if they have some non-texting app installed (Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Slack, WhatsApp, Discord, anything), those will all work better.
The “rich” texting situation on Android is a terrible mess, especially across different model phones and/or carriers. “Rich” in this case means anything that isn’t a simple plaintext SMS under 160 characters. The moment you add pictures, it becomes drastically less reliable, since it will have to try to negotiate MMS delivery across different phones and carriers, and there’s no guarantee it will go through. Even when it does go through, it will be a drastically lower resolution version of the original photo.
The only way to avoid that is if both people are using Google Messages (the app by that specific name, not any generic texting app that came with their Android) AND both users have the “RCS” messaging setting enabled (it’s still new-ish and only some phones have that) AND both carriers support that AND they both have good enough reception. If any of those conditions aren’t met, the picture will be lower quality (falling back to the ancient MMS protocol) or not send at all or not be successfully received. It’s not at all like the seamless experience on iPhone, or, say, between two Pixel users on the same carrier.
Two Android users using different phones on different carriers is a worst-case scenario for successfully sending or receiving photos. Yeah, it’s 2025, and it’s kinda ridiculous that this is a thing, but that’s the Android SMS/MMS world for ya.