iOS 26.5 Beta Supports RCS End-to-End Encryption

Cross-platform end-to-end encryption in RCS may finally be coming to iOS, as the new iOS 26.5 beta released by Apple has end-to-end encryption support.

The default messaging experience on mobile has long been dominated by SMS, a standard from the 1990’s that doesn’t support encryption, typing indicators, or even reasonable image sizes. As such, most people tend to avoid texting on SMS if they can avoid it.

Mobile carriers have been looking to upgrade SMS for a long time. RCS has been in the works since 2007, but adoption has been low (particularly with the default iOS Messages app lacking support until quite recently in iOS 18).

Google messages already supported RCS since 2019, but Apple remained stubbornly resistant.

Google Messages also supported their own in-house E2EE back in 2022 but it was only between Google Messages users.

The GSMA, the organization responsible for the RCS standard, first announced they would support interoperable E2EE all the way back in September 2024.

Then they released E2EE as part of Universal Profile 3.0, based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol from the IETF, cementing encryption as part of the standard.

Then, the ball was in Apple and Google's hands. Google began migrating their Signal protocol-based encryption over to the new MLS encryption. Apple confirmed they would be working on adding support to the Messages app.

Then, silence.

In between then and now, several new versions of the Universal Profile have been released by the GSMA, adding new features. They even released Universal Profile 4.0 recently, adding video calls and rich text formatting.

The previous iOS 26.4 beta showed hints of the new RCS E2EE feature, but it did not ship in the stable version. Apple gave a statement confirming as much in the developer notes:

RCS end-to-end encryption is now available for testing in this beta. This feature is not shipping in this release and will be available to customers in a future software update for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS. End-to-end encryption is in beta and is not available for all devices or carriers. Conversations labeled as encrypted are encrypted end-to-end, so messages can’t be read while they’re sent between devices. In this beta, RCS encryption is available for testing between Apple devices and is not yet testable with other platforms.

They didn't specify which future release, so it's possible iOS 26.5 won't be the one either.

The new toggle emphasizes that the feature is still in fact in beta, with a description stating that it's not available for every device or carrier.

Apple has had previous features such as Private Relay and currently Apple Intelligence that have had long periods where the feature was available in stable releases of iOS with a (Beta) marker, so we can expect a long period of the feature not being considered complete even when it ships.

In order for the feature to work, your device, the person's device you are messaging, and presumably both of your carriers all need to support at least Universal Profile 3.0, so it might be a while yet before you can message all of your contacts with E2EE by default.