RCS Stuck on Setting Up in Messages

When my RCS got stuck after moving to a new Galaxy device, "Setting up..." sat there for the better part of a day before I actually sat down and dealt with it properly. I tapped Retry a dozen times, restarted the phone twice, and got the exact same spinning status every time. The frustrating part is that most of the advice floating around still says to just clear the app cache and wait, and for a lot of people right now, that simply isn't fixing it.

Part of the reason is timing. With so many people being pushed from Samsung Messages over to Google Messages as their default texting app, way more phones are trying to re-register for RCS at once than usual, and the handoff between the two apps doesn't always go cleanly. That's on top of the usual triggers — new phone, SIM swap, carrier change — that have always made RCS verification flaky.

Here's the exact method I used to force mine to verify, in the order I'd actually try these, plus what I did to make sure none of my message history was at risk while I worked through it.

Why Your RCS Chat Gets Stuck on "Setting Up"

"Setting up" just means Google Messages is trying to verify that your phone number belongs to the device you're using it on. Officially, that status is supposed to resolve in minutes — Google's own troubleshooting page describes "Awaiting retry" as a phone number verification issue that should clear up within about 30 minutes. In practice, when it drags on for hours or days, the verification handshake between your phone, Google's RCS servers, and your carrier has jammed somewhere and it isn't going to unstick itself just by waiting.

A few things make this far more likely right now:

• You recently switched from Samsung Messages to Google Messages, and both apps tried to claim RCS for the same number
• You swapped SIMs, changed carriers, or moved to a new phone with the same number
• Your Google Account has its own phone-verification setting fighting with the one inside Messages
• Google Play services or Carrier Services silently got into a broken state

None of this means your number or your data is broken — it means the verification step got interrupted somewhere, and you need to force it to restart cleanly.

Before You Touch Anything: Make Sure Your Messages Are Actually Safe

I want to get this out of the way early, because it's the thing people worry about most. Your regular SMS and MMS conversations don't live inside "Google Messages" as an isolated app — they're stored in your phone's own telephony/messages database, the same one every texting app on your device reads from. Clearing an app's cache or data doesn't touch that database.

RCS-specific data (read receipts, typing indicators, and any RCS-only group chats) is a different story, since that's tied more closely to the app itself. That's exactly why the order of the fixes below matters: I start with the option that never touches Google Messages' own storage, and only move to clearing the Messages app itself as a later step, with a backup check first.

Fix 1: The Basic Retry (Do This First, Two Minutes)

Skip this only if you've already tried it multiple times today.

1. Open Google Messages
2. Tap your profile picture in the top right
3. Tap Messages settings → RCS chats
4. Tap Retry and confirm your phone number when asked

If your status changes to "Connecting," give it a genuine 30 minutes before assuming it's failed — that matches what Google's own troubleshooting guidance says to expect for a normal verification retry.

Fix 2: Force a Reconnect With the Airplane Mode Trick

This is the fastest way to genuinely force RCS to attempt a fresh connection, rather than sitting on a stale one.

1. Turn on Airplane mode from your quick settings
2. Open Settings → Apps → Google Messages → Force stop
3. Wait about 15 seconds
4. Turn Airplane mode off
5. Reopen Google Messages and check RCS chats status again

Forcing the app closed while your phone has no signal, then bringing signal back, makes the app re-establish its connection from scratch instead of retrying against whatever broken session it was stuck on.

Fix 3: If You Just Switched From Samsung Messages, Turn Off Chat Features There First

This is the one that trips up Samsung owners specifically, and it explains a lot of the "verifying number stuck" reports I've seen from Galaxy users. Samsung Messages has its own RCS chat features, separate from Google's. If both apps still have chat features enabled at the same time, they can end up competing to register the same phone number for RCS, and neither one finishes.

1. Open Samsung Messages
2. Tap the menu icon → Settings
3. Tap RCS chats settings (or Chat features, depending on your version)
4. Turn RCS chats off in Samsung Messages
5. Go back into Google Messages → Messages settings → RCS chats and tap Retry

Do this before any of the deeper fixes below if Samsung Messages was ever your default texting app on this device — it's a quick check that solves it outright for a good number of Galaxy users.

Fix 4: Turn Off "Phone Number Verification" in Your Google Account (The Fix Most Guides Skip)

This is the one that actually got mine unstuck, and it doesn't show up in most generic troubleshooting lists because it's buried inside your Google Account settings rather than inside Messages itself. Your Google Account has its own automatic phone-number-verification setting, and when it's active, it can conflict with the separate verification Google Messages is trying to run for RCS.

1. Open your phone's Settings
2. Go to Google → All services
3. Find Phone Number Verification and turn it off
4. Go back into Google Messages → Messages settings → RCS chats and tap Retry

If the toggle itself won't load or keeps showing a Retry button that goes nowhere, that's actually a sign this account-level verification is exactly what's jammed — give it a few minutes and try again before moving on.

Fix 5: Clear Carrier Services — Not Google Messages — First

This is the safest data-wiping step you can take, and it's worth doing before you go anywhere near clearing Google Messages itself. Carrier Services is a background system app that handles RCS and network provisioning behind the scenes. Clearing it doesn't touch your conversations, contacts, or anything stored in Google Messages — it just resets the connection layer underneath it.

1. Open Settings → Apps
2. Tap See all apps, then find Carrier Services
3. Tap Storage & cache
4. Tap Clear cache, then Clear storage
5. Restart your phone
6. Open Google Messages and check the RCS chats status again

If your device doesn't list "Carrier Services" as a separate app, it may be bundled into Google Play services — clear the cache there instead, using the same steps.

Fix 6: Clear Google Messages App Data (Only If Fix 5 Didn't Work)

This is the step people worry about, so do a quick check first: open Google Messages → Messages settings → Chat backup (or check under Settings → System → Backup) and confirm a recent backup exists before you continue. Your SMS/MMS thread history itself lives outside the app, but clearing app data does reset any local settings, RCS session state, and app-specific preferences, so having a backup is just good practice rather than optional.

1. Open Settings → Apps → Google Messages
2. Tap Storage & cache
3. Tap Clear cache first, and check RCS status
4. If that alone doesn't help, tap Clear storage as well
5. Reopen Google Messages, sign back in if prompted, and go through Messages settings → RCS chats → Retry

Fix 7: Force-Deregister Your Number With Google's Official Tool

If RCS is still stuck after the above, Google has a dedicated web tool built for exactly this situation — it forces your number completely out of Google's RCS system so the next registration starts from a clean slate.

1. On any device, go to messages.google.com/disable-chat
2. Enter the phone number that's stuck
3. Google will text you a verification code — enter it on the page
4. Wait at least 10–15 minutes (some reports on Google's own support forums mention it taking several days in stubborn cases)
5. Go back into Google Messages and turn RCS chats back on

This step is specifically built for broken or "ghost" RCS registrations, which is exactly what a permanently stuck "Setting up" status usually is.

Fix 8: Remove and Re-Add Your Google Account

If nothing above has worked, the underlying issue may be a sync problem between your Google Account and the phone itself, rather than anything inside Messages.

1. Go to Settings → Accounts (or Passwords & accounts)
2. Tap your Google Account
3. Tap Remove account
4. Restart your phone
5. Add your Google Account back through the same menu
6. Open Google Messages and retry RCS chats

Give it a full restart between removing and re-adding — skipping that step is the most common reason this one doesn't work the first time.

What Didn't Help

A few things that get repeated constantly but didn't move the needle for me or for most of the reports I've seen:

• Restarting the phone on its own, without touching any settings — the stuck registration survives a reboot just fine
• Uninstalling and reinstalling Google Messages without clearing Carrier Services first — you lose nothing but also fix nothing
• Switching Wi-Fi networks — this is a verification/registration problem, not a connectivity one, so a faster or different network doesn't change the outcome

How Long This Can Actually Take

If everything above still leaves you at "Setting up," it's worth knowing this can genuinely take longer than expected. Google's official guidance treats anything past 30 minutes on "Awaiting retry" as a real issue worth troubleshooting, but people who've deregistered through the official tool after a SIM swap or device change have reported it taking anywhere from a few hours to over a week for the servers to fully catch up, according to threads on Google's own Messages support community. If you've worked through every fix here, the honest move is to leave RCS toggled on and give it a couple of days before troubleshooting further — repeatedly toggling it on and off tends to reset the wait rather than speed it up.

My Honest Take

None of this means Google Messages is fundamentally broken. The verification system genuinely does work for the overwhelming majority of people, most of the time, without any of this. The problem is that the transition away from Samsung Messages, combined with how many separate systems have to agree with each other — your Google Account, Carrier Services, your carrier's network, and Google's RCS servers — leaves a lot more room for one of them to get out of sync than most troubleshooting guides admit.

For me, it was the Google Account phone-verification setting fighting with Messages' own verification. For Galaxy owners coming from Samsung Messages, it's very often Fix 3. Work through these in order and you'll almost certainly land on the one that's actually causing yours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my RCS chat stuck on "Setting up"?

"Setting up" means Google Messages is in the middle of verifying that your phone number belongs to your current device. This step is meant to finish within minutes, but it commonly gets stuck after a device change, SIM swap, or a switch away from Samsung Messages, when two different systems both try to register the same number for RCS at once. If it's been stuck for hours, it means the verification process itself failed silently rather than that it's still working.

How do I force RCS to connect?

The fastest way is the airplane mode trick: turn on Airplane mode, force stop Google Messages from the app's settings, wait about 15 seconds, then turn Airplane mode back off and reopen the app. This makes RCS attempt a completely fresh connection instead of retrying a stale one. If that doesn't work, clearing Carrier Services (not Google Messages) and turning off Phone Number Verification under your Google Account settings are the two fixes most likely to force it through.

Will clearing Google Messages data delete my texts?

Your regular SMS and MMS messages are stored in your phone's own telephony database, not inside the Google Messages app itself, so clearing the app's cache or data doesn't erase that message history in the vast majority of cases. That said, it's safer to clear Carrier Services first, since that doesn't touch Google Messages' storage at all. If you do need to clear Google Messages' own data as a last resort, check that Chat backup is turned on beforehand, just to be safe with any RCS-specific conversation data.

Why does Samsung's RCS verification get stuck after switching to Google Messages?

This usually happens because Samsung Messages still has its own RCS chat features turned on in the background, even after you've set Google Messages as your default texting app. Both apps end up trying to register the same phone number for RCS at the same time, and the verification gets stuck between them. Turning off RCS chats inside Samsung Messages settings, then retrying inside Google Messages, resolves this for most Galaxy users.

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If you're dealing with other Android quirks after a recent update, the Android 16 notification bug guide covers a separate but similarly frustrating issue worth checking if notifications have been acting up too.