If you've been dealing with Google Messages issues—particular with regards to sending photos and videos—you aren't alone. Messages users are complaining about images that are slow to load when sent via RCS. Media shows up blurry for minutes at a time before users can actually open them. Photos and videos are also arriving compressed, which is something to be expected on SMS, not RCS.
Luckily for those affected, Google has taken notice. In a Tuesday post on the company's support website, a community manager acknowledged the “frustrating issues” with sending media in Google Messages, and shared some good news: The Google team has been “actively working on this,” and has issued updates dedicated to “significantly improving media receiving performance.”
There doesn't appear to be a new update to install to solve the issues on the users' end, which likely indicates these changes are happening behind the scenes on Google's side. Still, it doesn't hurt to keep Google Messages itself updated. Head to its Play Store page to make sure you're running the latest version of the app. If not, you'll want to hit Update. Hopefully, following all these changes, you'll shake these media issues for good.
Despite the company's optimism about the update, the post does suggest the problems here could be complicated. It doesn't help that Google avoids identifying the specific features in question that they've addressed, simply noting them as slowdowns and failures with media. As such, Google encourages users to continue sharing any issues they run into. Whether that means Google knows these particular issues could still be present when sending and receiving media in Google Messages isn't clear, but it's good context moving forward.
How to report Google Messages bugs to Google
If after today, you're still experiencing these media problems, or any issues at all with Google Messages, you should tell Google about them. To do so, open the app, tap your profile icon in the top right, then choose Help & feedback. Tap Send feedback at the bottom of this page, then choose whether you'd like Google Play services to access your device logs. (Choosing not to is fine.) From here, you can write out your feedback, and including screenshots or system logs if you like, before sending the feedback as an email.
