Google Messages will gain the ability to send original quality photos over RCS

One of the big reasons behind the push for RCS adoption is that it can send high quality images, much higher than what MMS can. Soon, the most popular RCS app on Android, Google Messages, will gain the ability to send original quality photos.

This is a new setting in the Photo Picker, a toggle that says either HD or HD+. Not the most informative names, but once you actually tap it, you get more descriptive options: one reduces the image size (and quality), the other sends the photo at original quality (at the expense of using more data). This was discovered by the Android Authority team while tearing down a beta APK for Messages.

Okay, while “HD or HD+” is a bit vague, at least they should be familiar to users – this is exactly the same toggle that WhatsApp uses.

Last year, Google Messages gained support for sending Ultra HDR images over RCS. Ultra HDR, which was introduced with Android 14, combines a standard JPEG with additional metadata. Software that doesn’t support it just sees a JPEG. Software that does support it uses the metadata to recreate the wider dynamic range of the original HDR image (more details here).

Again, this toggle is available in the beta version of Google Messages, but it should make its way to the stable release soon.

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