iPhone-to-Android texts will finally be encrypted in iOS 26.5

The most-used messaging gap in the world is about to close. Apple has confirmed that the next iPhone software release will encrypt every text sent between iPhones and Android devices — an upgrade that brings cross-platform texting in line with the privacy of WhatsApp, Signal, or iMessage between two iPhones.

Apple’s iOS 26.5 introduces end-to-end encryption for RCS messages exchanged between iPhones and Android phones, the first time these conversations have been protected from carrier-level interception. Until now, the moment an iPhone chat crossed the platform line — to a friend on a Pixel, a Galaxy, or any Android device — the encryption iMessage offers between two iPhones simply fell away. Apple’s exact wording, embedded in the iOS 26.5 beta changelog, describes the rollout as “end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging (beta) in Messages” available with supported carriers.

The setting is on by default. Users running iOS 26.5 can verify it under the RCS Messaging menu inside the Messages section of Settings. When a chat with an Android phone is being encrypted, a small lock icon appears in the conversation thread, mirroring the indicator Google Messages already shows for its own encrypted chats. On the Android side, Google Messages renders these new iPhone conversations identically to any other encrypted RCS exchange.

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The practical effect is enormous. Roughly every cross-platform text — between billions of iPhone and Android users globally — has until now traveled in the same fundamentally unprotected envelope as a regular SMS, viewable in transit by carriers and accessible through legal requests. iMessage solved that problem for two iPhones a decade ago. Google Messages solved it for two Android phones in 2020. This is the first time the two ecosystems meet in the middle.

There is a caveat that determines whether any individual user actually gets the upgrade, and it is a meaningful one. Encryption only activates with “supported carriers,” in Apple’s wording, and carrier-level RCS support remains uneven across countries. In markets where carriers have been slow to enable the latest RCS standards, users may continue to see plain unencrypted SMS or basic RCS for some time. The protection also applies specifically to the default Apple Messages and Google Messages apps; users on third-party Android messaging apps will not automatically benefit. Apple already attempted to ship this feature in the iOS 26.4 beta and pulled it before the final release, so the “beta” label attached to it again in iOS 26.5 deserves some weight.

For high-security needs, this does not replace Signal, WhatsApp, or other dedicated encrypted messengers. Those services protect metadata and offer stronger guarantees around message retention. iOS 26.5’s RCS encryption closes the everyday gap — the long-held assumption that texting an Android-using friend is roughly as private as shouting across a room — without competing for the dedicated-privacy market.

iOS 26.5 has been in beta since late March and is expected to reach the public this month. The broader RCS encryption rollout will continue through the year as more carriers turn it on at the network level. Apple’s WWDC keynote on June 8 is expected to focus on iOS 27 rather than further iOS 26 features, which makes the encryption upgrade the defining change of the iOS 26 cycle.

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