Google Messages RCS editing option sees wider availability in beta

Back at the end of May, Google Messages officially announced the ability to edit RCS messages. As with any such announcements, the feature wasn't initially available, and now it seems it's finally seeing some wider availability.

Basically, you have 15 minutes after sending an RCS message to edit what you wrote. To do that, you have to long-press on the message bubble, and you'll be greeted by a new pencil icon in the top toolbar right next to the copy button.


As usual with editing functionality, Google Messages will notify the recipient that something has been "Edited". Anybody is able to long-press the message, then tap the overflow icon in the top right corner, and view details to see the "Original message" and what it has been "Edited" to. Slight side note: I feel like this is a bit annoying, because sometimes when I edit something I wouldn't want others to see the message with the error...

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The RCS editing feature has spent significant time in testing, and both the recipient and the sender have to have the feature available for it to work.

It's still in beta though. However, more people on the beta channel are starting to see the update live. You won't see a prompt for when it's available. To check if you have it, you can just long-press on a sent message. It is unclear when the feature will be globally available as a part of the stable version of Google Messages.

I personally like this feature a lot. It's perfect for when you send something in a hurry and it's not saying exactly what you want, and I tend to use editing features on messages relatively often. I somewhat dislike the ability of the other person to see the original message, but I guess that's all for the sake of transparency, and that's not a bad thing, per se.