Samsung Messages was discontinued. Messages by OzarksMade keeps that familiar Samsung-style design alive (SMS, MMS, and RCS) on the phone you already have.
Free during the open beta · Built for Samsung Galaxy · Actively updated
Messages by OzarksMade applied for Google Play production access on Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 7:45 AM CDT. The app is finished, tested and ready to release.
That is how long the application has been sitting with Google. Nothing is outstanding on our side. Google reviews every production access application and decides when it is approved, and we have no way to speed that up. This page updates the moment Messages by OzarksMade is live in the Play Store.
Designed for Galaxy. Samsung Messages was discontinued on July 6, 2026. Workarounds exist on some older devices, but they are not a long-term answer. Messages by OzarksMade continues the messaging experience Galaxy owners know, with a familiar One UI design, active development and new features in every update.
Built around One UI. You chose a Galaxy for the way it works. Messages by OzarksMade follows that philosophy with a clean, familiar interface, and adds capabilities that go beyond what came before. The goal is not to reinvent messaging. It is to carry forward an experience millions already know.
With Companion Mode, Google Messages provides the RCS engine while Messages by OzarksMade delivers the One UI experience you use every day, with blue bubbles, read receipts, typing indicators and reactions. Prefer not to use Google Messages? Standalone Mode runs entirely on its own for SMS and MMS, and every feature that does not depend on RCS works exactly the same. Switch between them at any time.
RCS is gated behind carrier and platform integrations: device attestation, carrier provisioning, and a trusted registration with the RCS network. Access to those is held by device manufacturers and platform owners. Companion Mode is designed to work within those requirements. Google Messages remains on your phone as the RCS engine, and Messages by OzarksMade becomes the app you open, read and type in every day.
Samsung Messages did not operate its own RCS network. For roughly seven years, Chat features on Galaxy devices were delivered over Google's Jibe infrastructure, which means every RCS message sent from Samsung Messages already travelled through Google's servers. Companion Mode does not move your messages to a new provider. It keeps the same path your messages have always taken and changes only the app you use.
Google Messages ships preinstalled on virtually every Android phone sold today, including Samsung devices, and on most of them it cannot be uninstalled or even disabled. It's already on your phone, already running, already handling RCS. Companion Mode simply puts it to work in the background instead of leaving it as an app you never open. Nothing extra to download, no new account, no second inbox to manage.
Very little changes. Your messages travel the route they always have, through software already installed on your phone, and you get a messaging experience designed around One UI. That is the purpose of Companion Mode: keep everything familiar underneath, and restore the part that went away.
Turn on Companion Mode for full RCS chat features, or keep it simple with Standalone SMS & MMS. You can switch at any time, and there is a third mode in early testing.
Google Messages stays on your phone as the RCS engine while Messages by OzarksMade becomes the app you actually use, with blue chat bubbles, typing indicators, delivery and read receipts, reactions, and high-quality media. Same path your texts have always taken, wrapped in the One UI experience.
Prefer not to use Google Messages at all? Standalone Mode runs Messages by OzarksMade completely on its own for reliable SMS and MMS (texts, group messages, and photos) with the same familiar design and none of the RCS setup.
Pair a tablet or a second phone with the Google Messages on your main device and your conversations follow you. Read and reply from the second device while everything you send goes out from your phone, using your number. Remote Mode is available today in Labs for early testing and remains in development. Full cross-device support is in progress.
The Samsung Messages experience rebuilt feature by feature, plus everything we have added since. All of the below is in the app today, and updates land every few days.
Rounded cards, the collapsing title, chip filters, and bubble styling modeled faithfully on the Samsung Messages you remember.
Read receipts, typing indicators, reactions, and crisp photo & video sharing through Companion Mode.
Full group conversations with per-sender bubbles, plus mass texting when you need to reach everyone at once.
Verified business chatbots render with their real name and logo, just like they should.
Deleted a message by mistake? A One UI-style Trash keeps it for 30 days, with backups that survive a phone switch.
Write it now, send it later. Pick a date and time, or save it as a draft to send whenever you are ready.
Sort conversations into your own categories and filter the list by tapping a chip at the top, the way One UI does it.
Give a conversation its own background, either a color you pick or a wallpaper of your own. Set per chat room, so the ones that matter look different the moment you open them.
Star the messages that matter and find them in one place, and pin the conversations you open most to the top of the list.
Press and hold to record, release to review, then send. Received voice messages play right inside the bubble.
Swipe a bubble to reply to it, long press to react or forward, star it, copy part of it, or view its full details.
Two lines, handled properly. Per-SIM colors and icons pulled from the system, per-SIM notification channels, and a clear indicator of which line a message used.
Keep the replies you send constantly a tap away, and edit the list to suit how you actually text.
Block a number or an entire group, see what was blocked, and manage the list from a proper One UI settings screen.
Open a Fold and the list moves to the left with the conversation on the right, on a divider you can drag. Close it and it goes back to one pane.
Set a One UI Color palette and the app puts it on: bubble colors, the toolbar, and the app icon on your home screen, which follows your themed icon style along with everything else. It picks up your system font too, so it reads like the rest of your phone. Light and dark are both first class.
Send photos, video, GIFs, voice clips, contacts, your location and calendar events. Every conversation keeps its own gallery of what you have shared.
Pick a folder and your chat data keeps its own copy, updated automatically as things change. An extra failsafe on top of Samsung Cloud and Smart Switch, for the details a normal backup leaves behind.
Give any conversation its own notification sound, mute the noisy ones, and get proper grouped notifications instead of one per sender.
Messages by OzarksMade is updated continuously. The following features are in active development. Availability dates are not confirmed.
Your conversations on a tablet or a second phone. Remote Mode is the first step and is available today in Labs. Full cross-device support is in development.
Search across every conversation, message and contact. In development, and not yet available in this release.
One UI animations, reproduced one at a time and measured against the original. The chat room gets smoother with every update.
Android Auto support is complete and temporarily disabled. Declaring it routes every release into Google Play's manual review queue, extending review from under an hour to more than two days. During the current rapid update cycle for beta testers, Auto stays off. It returns once the release schedule settles.
Read and reply without reaching for your phone. The groundwork is complete and the app experience is in development.
Act on a conversation with a single swipe. No menu, no extra taps.
Blocking is available today. Automatic filtering of suspicious messages is in development.
Messages by OzarksMade is developed and tested on Galaxy devices. Expanded support for other Android phones is planned for a future update.
Two deliberate design decisions shape how Messages by OzarksMade looks and how it protects you.
On a Galaxy device, Messages by OzarksMade adopts your setup. Your One UI Color palette defines the bubble colors and the toolbar, and the app icon follows your themed icon style along with the rest of your home screen. Text follows your system font. Galaxy Themes restyle Samsung's own system apps and do not change the appearance inside Messages by OzarksMade.
On other Android devices, Material You theming and third-party fonts are blocked by design, and the genuine One UI appearance and typeface are applied instead. Messages by OzarksMade is built to deliver one experience, consistently, on every device it runs on.
At startup, Messages by OzarksMade verifies that it is running on an unmodified device and that the installation is a genuine copy from Google Play. Devices that are rooted, running a custom ROM, or modified with tools such as Frida or Xposed do not pass verification. Neither do repackaged, resigned, sideloaded or unlicensed builds.
When verification fails, Messages by OzarksMade switches to read-only. Your conversations remain available to open and read, and nothing is deleted. The composer is disabled and sending is unavailable for text messages and chat features.
Companion Mode carries your conversations and an active connection to your Google account. On a modified device, that connection can be intercepted or redirected without your knowledge. Verification keeps that connection on devices where it can be trusted, and protects the integrity of the application and OzarksMade licensing.
Devices running an unmodified version of Android, with Messages by OzarksMade installed from Google Play, are unaffected.
Want early access before launch? Messages by OzarksMade is available now as a beta on Android. Just follow these two steps.
You must join our Google Group before you can get the app, and you have to join with the same Google account you use on your phone. Until you do, the app will not appear in the Play Store for you, and the free tester pricing (the Test Card, explained below) will not be available. Do not try to install or pay for the app before joining the group.
Join the Google GroupOnce you've joined the group, open the Play Store listing and download the latest beta build.
Disclaimer: Messages by OzarksMade is a paid app and will start at $0.99 per download in the Google Play Store once the production version is released. Access to the app is free while in beta, but please note, the beta version may contain bugs and access to the beta program is subject to change or end at any time. Beta updates are currently released every few days to add more features and fix active bugs. Contact messages@ozarksmade.net for more information.
After you install the app, here's how to turn on Companion Mode so your chats appear in Messages by OzarksMade, with Google Messages doing the RCS work quietly in the background.
On first launch, Messages by OzarksMade walks you through granting the permissions it needs so your texts land here.
In the setup screen, tap Connect to Google Messages. You'll sign in with the Google account already on your phone and pair the app with Google Messages. If you'd rather stick to plain texts, choose Standalone Mode instead. You can always enable Companion Mode later.
Google shows a quick confirmation to link the app. Approve it, and that's it. Your conversations appear in Messages by OzarksMade with full RCS chat features, while Google Messages keeps running in the background. Nothing new to install, and your messages take the same path they always have.
Need help getting started, or ran into something odd? Reach out and we'll get you sorted.
Email Support
