One of the main reasons people prefer group chats in Apple‘s iMessage or RCS text messages over Google Messages is the greater level of control that both services provide to participants.
Whether you’re an iPhone owner and everyone in your group is texting from an Apple device, or you’re on an Android team chatting with other Android users over RCS, your conversations have typing indicators, usage sharing of high-quality media and when you need your phone to ring less, the ability to mute a conversation or leave it completely.
Most importantly, iMessage and RCS group chats offer end-to-end encryption, unless you’re in a thread with a mix of iPhone and Android phone owners.
Unfortunately, group texting with a mix of iPhone and Android participants includes only basic features. Those group texts are sent via MMS, a decades-old texting standard supported by all phones and carriers, but not created to include the messaging features we’ve become accustomed to.
In 2024, we could start using MMS much less. Apple has committed to supporting the RCS standard later this year, which could mean group texting between iPhone and Android phones will improve with features like muting notifications, leaving a conversation, and end-to-end encryption. Until then, here are the steps to abandon any conversation from your phone’s native texting app, regardless of whether it happens in iMessage, RCS, or as a mixed MMS chat.
Leave group chats on an iPhone
You can leave group conversations on your iPhone in two ways. You can mute a chat, which keeps you in a conversation but you will no longer need to receive notifications about it, or you can leave it completely and no longer have access to the chat.
On an iPhone, open Messages and go to the chat thread you want to leave. At the top of the screen are the conversation controls, a group of icons with the participants. Tap this to open a pop-up menu. Whenever your conversation has four or more participants, iOS gives you the ability to tap Leave this conversation with red text. However, if your chat has three or fewer participants, the option is grayed out, but you can tap Hide alerts to prevent the conversation from notifying you further. touching Hide alerts It also allows you to mute a conversation, allowing you to maintain access to a chat without having to leave it.
Hide and block MMS chats on an iPhone
Although you can’t officially leave MMS group chats, you can hide or lock the conversation. It’s not as good as leaving a conversation completely (other participants will still see you as being in it), but at least you have no personal evidence that the conversation is continuing.
On an iPhone, visit the group chat and tap conversation controls. instead of seeing Leave this conversation will see the option to Delete and block this conversation. If you prefer to mute the conversation instead of deleting and blocking it, you can press Hide Alerts to silence him.
Leave group chats on an Android phone
On an Android phone that uses Google Messages, visit the chat thread you want to leave. Tap the conversation name to bring up the Group details menu. At the bottom of the screen, tap the leave group button. Unlike iMessage, you can leave chats with as few as three participants.
If you just want to mute notifications, tap the notifications about Him Group details screen to open a window with notification controls. This includes options to make the conversation stick. Silent to prevent it from ringing in your chat, and if you touch lthe lock screen, A pop-up menu will give you the option to avoid notifications. Tap Don’t show notifications at all to allow.
Hide and block MMS chats on an Android phone
On an Android phone with Google Messages, follow the same steps to access notification control options. This includes visiting the MMS chat thread and then tapping the conversation name or participant names at the top to bring up the Group details menu. You will not see a leave group option as you did with an RCS thread, but you get the same ability to tap Notifications to access the controls to hide the conversation from view. This includes the same options to change the conversation to Silent and to select Don’t Show notifications at all.
SMS vs. MMS vs. RCS
SMS stands for Short Message Service and debuted in 1992. Text messages are limited to 160 characters. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and supports sending photos, videos, or other files and messages longer than 160 characters. MMS allows a group of people to chat in a single conversation thread, while SMS can send text messages to multiple people at once, but they are sent as individual messages to each person. RCS, which launched 15 years ago, is short for Rich Communication Services and can display write indicators, read receipts, and has end-to-end encryption.
While cross-platform chat apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram have better controls for conversations, encryption, and privacy, regardless of the type of phone participants use, they do not support SMS, MMS, or RCS. That’s why the default messaging app on most phones is still widely used, even if it means a group chat is done in a less secure, less feature-rich standard, like MMS.
There is hope that in 2024 and beyond, there will be substantially fewer conversations about MMS. While we still don’t know to what extent Apple will support the RCS texting standard when it comes to the iPhone (other than knowing that RCS text messages will still be green like SMS and MMS messages are now), just the fact that The ability to support more modern texting between iPhone and Android securely is expected to mean that leaving a conversation will also improve over time.
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