This release adds official support for using RCS in Google Messages. Using this requires granting the Phone permission to Play services to provide carrier information to it, granting the required permissions to Google Messages and then setting Google Messages as the current carrier messaging app. Setting an app as the carrier messaging app provides it with device identifier access which is documented in our FAQ. However, Google Messages is a special case where part of the implementation is in Play services. We’ve dealt with this by special casing the device identifier permission check to detect when the user has granted this access to the official Google Messages app which then also provides the official Play services app with the same access. This doesn’t provide any extra access in practice since Google Messages shares the information with Play services.

Re-enabling RCS after disabling it isn’t expected to work yet and you’ll need to clear the app data to enable it.

Tags:

• 2025092700 (Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6a, Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7a, Pixel Tablet, Pixel Fold, Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 8a, Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Pixel 9a, emulator, generic, other targets)

Changes since the 2025092500 release:

• add SystemUI and Settings integration for detecting and notifying Pixel 6a users with batteries impacted by the fire hazard issue resulting in capacity and charging being throttled along with directing users to the support options for getting a free battery replacement, $150 credit or $100 cash as compensation for the faulty battery (a subset of this will be replaced by AOSP code when Android 16 QPR1 is finally pushed to AOSP)
• Sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer: add request for the unprivileged READ_PHONE_NUMBERS permission to Play services which users can manually grant via the Phone permission since it’s needed for RCS activation but is not requested since they request the privileged permission instead
• Sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer: when users have granted device identifier access to the official Google Messages app by setting it as the default SMS/MMS/RCS app
• Vanadium: update to version 141.0.7390.43.0
• Vanadium: update to version 141.0.7390.43.1

Additional security patches from the November 2025 and December 2025 Android Security Bulletins are included in the 2025092701 security preview release. List of additional fixed CVEs:

• Critical: CVE-2025-48593
• High: CVE-2022-25836, CVE-2022-25837, CVE-2023-40130, CVE-2024-43766, CVE-2025-22420, CVE-2025-22432, CVE-2025-32348, CVE-2025-48525, CVE-2025-48536, CVE-2025-48544, CVE-2025-48555, CVE-2025-48567, CVE-2025-48572, CVE-2025-48573, CVE-2025-48574, CVE-2025-48575, CVE-2025-48576, CVE-2025-48577, CVE-2025-48578, CVE-2025-48579, CVE-2025-48580, CVE-2025-48581, CVE-2025-48582, CVE-2025-48583, CVE-2025-48584, CVE-2025-48585, CVE-2025-48586, CVE-2025-48587, CVE-2025-48589, CVE-2025-48590, CVE-2025-48592, CVE-2025-48594, CVE-2025-48595, CVE-2025-48596, CVE-2025-48597, CVE-2025-48598, CVE-2025-48600, CVE-2025-48601, CVE-2025-48602, CVE-2025-48603, CVE-2025-48604, CVE-2025-48605, CVE-2025-48607, CVE-2025-48609, CVE-2025-48611, CVE-2025-48612, CVE-2025-48614, CVE-2025-48615, CVE-2025-48616, CVE-2025-48617, CVE-2025-48618, CVE-2025-48619, CVE-2025-48620, CVE-2025-48621

We’re allowed to provide an early release with these patches and to list the CVEs but must wait until the embargo ends to publish sources or details on the patches. We strongly disagree with broadly distributing patches to OEMs 3-4 months before the official publication date. It further delays getting patches to users and sophisticated attackers will have no issue getting the patches from one of many people at Android OEMs with early access. It should be limited to at most 7 days. The lack of actual secrecy has been acknowledged through Android limiting the embargo to source code and details which allows us to fix these early. We’re doing it with separate opt-in releases to keep the regular releases properly open source instead of delayed open source. We plan to integrate this choice into the initial setup wizard. The positive side is that we can now provide patches to people who truly need them without even the previous 1 month embargo delay.