You Can Now Text Yourself via RCS on Google Messages (and You Should)

There's no shortage of ways to jot down ideas these days. Your phone comes with a notes app out of the box, and its app store is full of alternatives if you're looking for any number of features or advantages.

But, often, the best way to keep track of thoughts, photos, or anything else, is by texting yourself. If you don't normally text yourself, this might sound a bit odd. Why would you text yourself? I'll get into that soon. But first, let's discuss the latest app to do self-messaging right: Google Messages.

Text yourself with RCS using Google Messages

As reported by Android Authority, Google Messages' latest beta now offers users the option to text themselves via RCS. According to Redditor seeareeff, the feature is also running in the stable version of the app. Google Messages already lets you text yourself, but only through SMS. That might not sound like a big change, but it is. SMS is inferior to RCS in almost every way—which you might expect from a messaging protocol invented in 1992.

By opening this feature up to RCS, Google Messages now lets you send yourself longer messages, as well as high-quality photos and videos. SMS made it impossible to quickly preserve media with Google Messages, since it would compress images and videos (especially videos). Lifting those limitations means Google Messages users can enjoy a perk that other users have been enjoying on other platforms for years.

The biggest downside, however, is that RCS messages to yourself still aren't encrypted—at least, according to Android Authority. That's usually a big perk of RCS over SMS, and why security experts recommend messaging using the former rather than the latter. That lack of encryption isn't a huge deal, especially if you're using the service to reference innocuous thoughts and media, but it's good to keep in mind. You probably shouldn't text yourself anything particularly private or sensitive over Google Messages.

How to text yourself with RCS in Google Messages

If the feature is already live on your end, you won't have to do anything differently. Just text yourself! You should see the message come through as RCS, rather than SMS.

If not, however, you may need to sign up for the Google Messages beta to try this out early. You can go to the Google Messages Play Store page, tap Become a tester, then follow the on-screen instructions to enroll in the beta.

Why text yourself?

Google Messages joins a collection of apps that makes it easy to message yourself with good results. That includes iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Facebook Messenger—really, any messaging platform that allows for unlimited messages with high quality media.

For many, the best part about texting yourself is simply the convenience. You probably spend a significant portion of the time on your phone within one of these messaging apps, which means it's easy to switch from one conversation to your own private chat with yourself. If someone brings something up in one of your conversations you want to save for later, you can quickly text it to yourself.

It's also a great way to sync messages and media across devices. If you have access to the messaging app on your phone, tablet, or even computer, you can access these thoughts and items from any of your devices. All of those individual messages are timestamped too, so you know exactly when each was sent. That's something I wish Apple's Notes app would do: While you can see when a note was both created and last edited, you can't see a history of what was added when. If you text yourself, you can see exactly when each and every message was generated.

The lack of end-to-end encryption really is a bummer, though. If you like the idea of texting yourself, but want to make sure your notes and media are protected, you might want to think about using an encrypted platform, like Signal, for the task. Using such a platform, you could send a picture of your social security card to yourself—as long as no one has physical access to your device, you'll be safe.

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