Google gives Android users control over SMS, MMS, RCS backups

Technology Jul 10, 2026

Google is giving Android users more say over what gets backed up, letting you choose if your SMS, MMS, and RCS messages are saved.
You'll find these new options under Settings > Accounts and backup > Google Backup > Other device data (on Pixel phones).
Before this, all your texts were automatically backed up with no way to turn it off.

Google message backups count toward storage

To use the new controls, make sure you're running at least version 26.25 of Google Play services.
Also, message backups now count toward your Google Account storage (about 40MB per user, on average).
Plus, Google's testing a "Documents" backup feature that saves files like PDFs and DOCs straight to Google Drive, rolling out now through the Play services beta.