Note that this page covers two separate Android 17 issues: some RCS messages not getting backed up, and conversations that seem to be missing on phones that were upgraded from Android 16 to Android 17. This is NOT about the move from Samsung Messages to Google Messages.
Update (Sep 25, 2026):
Missing conversations on phones upgraded to Android 17
We’ve found a second Android 17 problem that can make whole conversations look like they’re missing. It can happen even in conversations that have only ordinary SMS and MMS messages and no RCS at all.
What’s happening
If your phone was updated from Android 16 to Android 17, Android marks every new conversation thread started after the update as “restricted”, whatever is in it. Only the default SMS app can see restricted conversations. On a phone that shipped with Android 17, this marker is cleared as soon as a normal message arrives. The Android 16 to 17 update misses that step, so the marker is never cleared. Conversations from before the update are not affected.
Unlike the RCS issue, the messages themselves are not restricted, so they are still included in the backup. What gets lost is which conversation thread each message belongs to. You may have seen:
- Select conversations in the backup settings listing only older conversations, or none at all.
- Picture and group messages (MMS) from these conversations saved without the other person’s phone number. The app’s backup viewer and the Web Backup Viewer then showed fewer conversations than expected, sometimes none. Restoring them put them all into one blank conversation in other messaging apps while Google Messages may or may not show them in the correct conversation threads.
What’s fixed in v10.29.002
- Conversation list: Select conversations now shows all your conversation threads on Android 17. The hidden ones are rebuilt from their messages.
- New backups: when Android hides a conversation, the app now gets the phone numbers from each message’s own sender and recipient details, so MMS messages are saved with the correct address.
- Existing backups: backups that already contain messages without an address can now be viewed and restored correctly. The app works out who each message was with, leaves out your own number, and restores the message into the right conversation instead of a blank one. The Web Backup Viewer has been updated the same way.
- Split group chats: a group chat sometimes showed as several conversations when you viewed a backup, because its members were listed in a different order, or with and without the country code. It now shows as one conversation.
What still needs the default SMS app
- The clean-up tool under Menu > Tools removes the “restricted” tag from messages, but it can’t clear this marker on conversation threads. No app can; it needs a fix from Google.
- Conversations made up only of end-to-end encrypted RCS messages stay hidden unless the app is the default SMS app (see the original issue below).
- For the most complete backup, keep using Back up as default SMS app (Menu > Settings > Backup Settings) for manual backups. If you don’t, an RCS group chat in an affected conversation may be saved under its members’ names instead of the group name.
👉 Related Google Issue Tracker report: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/524931678
Update (Sep 3, 2026):
Some users reported that some of their messages were not getting included in the backup without setting the app as default SMS app on Android 16 as well. Based on this feedback, we’ve made the option to be the default SMS app during backups available on Android 16 in the v10.26.010 release of the app.
Update (July 22, 2026):
We’ve released a new version of the app that helps with the “missing messages” issue caused by these new message privacy rules for Android 17 devices.
Here’s what’s new:
- Easier backups of restricted messages – When you manually start a backup, the app can now request if it can become your default messaging app just long enough to grab those hard-to-reach “restricted” messages. Scheduled backups cannot request to become the default SMS app and will continue missing those messages.
- A new clean-up tool – Under Menu > Tools, there’s a new option that goes through your existing messages and removes the “restricted” tag from messages, so they’re no longer locked away. Any future scheduled backups will then be able to back those existing messages.
- Better restores – When you restore a backup, the app will no longer bring back that “restricted” tag, even if it was present in the original backup. This means restored messages will be fully accessible again.
- Transfer – When performing a Transfer and sending messages from a phone on Android 17, it will ask to become the default SMS app to include all the messages.
- Settings – A new setting (Menu > Settings > Backup Settings > Back up as default SMS app) to set it as default SMS app during Archive Mode or Incremental Backups created manually.
Where to get it: This update (v10.26.007) is now available on the Play Store and on this website.
Note that the options above are only available for devices on Android 17.
Original issue:
If you notice that some messages or entire conversation threads are missing from your SMS Backup & Restore backups, this is likely caused by a platform-level change introduced in recent versions of Google Messages and formalised in Android 17. End-to-end encrypted (E2EE) RCS messages are now marked as “Restricted” in Android’s messaging database, meaning they are stored on the device but are only accessible to the default SMS app. Apps that use the standard READ_SMS permission — including SMS Backup & Restore — cannot read the content of these restricted messages.
Google has confirmed this is intentional behaviour, designed to uphold the privacy guarantee of end-to-end encryption.
What’s affected
Only end-to-end encrypted RCS messages are restricted. Standard SMS, MMS, and non-encrypted RCS messages remain fully accessible and will continue to back up normally. Depending on which of your conversations use E2EE RCS, you may see individual messages missing within a thread, or entire threads absent from your backup if all messages within them are E2EE RCS. On phones upgraded from Android 16, entire conversations can also appear missing even if they contain no RCS messages. See the Sep 25, 2026 update above.
How to verify this is what’s happening
Temporarily set SMS Backup & Restore as the default SMS app and then create a new backup. This can be done from Phone Settings > Apps > Default Apps on most phones. As the default SMS app it will have access to the restricted messages — if those missing messages now appear in the backup, that confirms they are stored on your device but marked as restricted. You can switch back to Google Messages afterward.
Is there a workaround?
SMS Backup & Restore can be manually set as the default SMS app, which grants it access to restricted messages for the duration of that backup. However this is not a practical long-term solution — while our app is the default, Google Messages loses its default status and you cannot send or receive messages normally. Scheduled automatic backups also cannot be relied upon to capture E2EE RCS messages for this reason.
Can SMS Backup & Restore fix this?
Not without changes from Google. The restriction is enforced at the platform level and READ_SMS — the standard permission backup apps use — is explicitly excluded from accessing E2EE message content. A proper solution would require Google to provide a dedicated API that allows authorised backup applications to access E2EE RCS messages in a privacy-preserving way.
Let Google know this matters to you
Google has marked this as working as intended, but that doesn’t mean the conversation is closed. Many users have a legitimate need to maintain independent, portable backups of their full message history — including encrypted RCS messages. If this affects you, please add a comment to the Google Issue Tracker to make your case. The more users who raise this, the more likely Google is to consider a backup-specific solution.
👉 Comment on the Google Issue Tracker: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/526983045