RCS chats between Galaxy phones and iPhones are now encrypted

Apple brought RCS support to iPhones in late 2024 to improve the messaging experience with Android phones. However, the rollout has been extremely slow, and RCS chats initially lacked end-to-end encryption. With the latest software update, iPhones now support end-to-end encrypted RCS chats with Android phones, like the ones from Samsung.

Apple released the iOS 26.5 update for iPhones earlier today. It introduces end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for RCS chats with Android devices, including Galaxy phones. This means messages exchanged between those devices cannot be read by anyone else or intercepted by other devices. The feature is part of the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 standard, which Apple has now adopted.

However, the feature is not yet available worldwide and could take several months to roll out globally. Only a limited number of carriers currently support RCS on iPhones, let alone end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging.

If the feature is available in your country and supported by your carrier, you should see a lock-shaped icon and an “Encrypted” label within RCS chat threads.

RCS chats on supported carriers will be enabled automatically for both existing and new conversations in a phased manner.

It is still unclear whether Apple’s implementation of RCS Universal Profile 3.0 also includes other features tied to the standard, such as inline replies, message editing and deletion, cross-platform message reactions between Android and iOS, and higher-quality voice messages.

RCS Universal Profile 4.0 could bring native video calls between Android phones and iPhones.