How to Send Group Texts with Android

Text messages are many people’s preferred method of keeping in touch. Quick, reliable, and simple, SMS messaging has gained in popularity long ago and is still a widely-used communication format. Sometimes, however, you want to notify multiple people about the same thing. Sending the same message to friends/family/coworkers over and over isn’t the most time-efficient way to go. Luckily, group texts are a thing in messaging. Here’s how to do it properly.

Why SMS?

You may wonder why you’d want to send a text message to a group of people instead of using a wide variety of online chat apps, such as Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc. Well, the answer here is also a question. Do you ever use text messaging for sending individual messages? Yes, most likely, you do resort to the SMS format in certain instances. Why? If you’re in an area where a WiFi connection isn’t available and you’re using mobile data, a simple SMS text will save you a lot of data and time in sending the message.

So, the instances where you’ll want to resort to group text messages can occur and knowing how to send them can go a long way in helping you organize things.

How to Check if MMS is Turned on for Your Phone

If you’re wanting to send a group chat, here’s how to check is MMS is turned on for your phone.

1. Navigate to your default Messages app on your Android device. 
2. Now, click on the three vertical dots menu, sometimes called a hamburger menu.
3. Now, scroll down and select Settings.
4. Next, click on Multimedia Messages (MMS).
5. Ensure that Auto-retrieve and Group Messaging are turned on.

The steps to check if MMS is turned on for your phone may vary from what is shown here. There are many different GUIs for the various Android operating systems in use, so you might need to look through your Settings menu to find it.

How to Send a Group Text on Android Phones

Well, first you’re going to launch the native Messaging app on your Android phone.

Of course, this app comes with the device and relies solely on your network to send and receive text messages. Because of this, you need to make sure that you have proper network access at the moment. If the “bars” on your phone’s home screen are full, start by creating a new message.

In the contacts selection part of the New Message screen, tap the contact icon. This may vary from device to device, as most manufacturers come up with their own interpretations of the Android OS.

Now, select the contacts that you want to group-message by tapping their contact icons. Finally, simply type the text message, as you would in any other SMS messaging instance and tap the send button. That’s it, you’ve successfully sent a group text message to the contacts that you’ve selected.

Is It Really a Group Chat?

Unfortunately, unlike the case is with iPhones, Android phones can’t really create group chats when it comes to SMS. iPhones can send photos, videos, reactions, and other things via the native messaging app using the internet, thanks to the iMessage feature. What iMessage also does, is it creates a group chat every time you try sending a group message. This works similarly to online chat apps. Every iPhone user gets every text message sent in the group chat.

On the other hand, sending a default group message from an Android phone will simply send that message to the selected people individually. They will all receive the message, but they won’t see who else you’ve sent it to and you’re the only one who will receive their replies. So, no, sending a group message does not mean starting a group chat on Android phones. The new Android users may need some time to adapt to this.

Can Android Do Group Messaging?

Yes, even without using third-party online chat apps. However, this requires the MMS protocol, meaning that this is a pricier option.

1. To change group text settings to MMS, navigate to Settings.
2. Then, go to Advanced, and turn on the group MMS option under Group Messaging.
3. Now, turn on the Auto-download MMS option, this might also be called Auto-retrieve.

This means that you can now essentially create group chats for your friends/family/coworkers. Everybody in the group chat will be able to see the SMS, or rather, the MMS messages that appear in it. Of course, as mentioned, this is a more expensive option, as MMS messages cost significantly more than the SMS do. Regardless, there you have it, this is how you can create a group chat on Android phones.

So, how is this going to work for other chat recipients? Well, quite simply, whether the person in question is an Android or an Apple user, their messaging options for that particular chat are going to switch to MMS. This means that anytime they send a message inside the chat in question, they will be actually sending an MMS instead of an SMS.

How to Leave a Text Group Chat?

You are probably used to being able to leave a chat on Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Google Hangouts, Skype, and other popular chat apps. Well, you can’t actually leave a group text chat because you can’t really remove yourself from the group. What you can do is prevent your phone from receiving notifications from the group in question. Do this by entering the chat in question’s options and toggling the notification settings off. You can also delete the chat thread if you wish to.

Text Messaging

As you can see, creating a group chat using Android’s native messaging app is very much possible. Although iPhone users do have it better in these terms, by simply enabling the group MMS option on your Android device, you too can enjoy group text chats.

Have you tried enabling the group MMS setting? Are you still using the text group messaging? Feel free to tell your own story. What do you like about it? What are the downsides? Feel free to hit that comments section below.