Simplifying messaging compliance for businesses with Android RCS Archival on Pixel
As business communication moves to modern, encrypted platforms, IT and compliance teams face a critical new challenge: how to seamlessly capture the records required to stay compliant. Archiving these communications isn't just best practice—it's essential for meeting stringent regulatory requirements, successfully navigating legal discovery (eDiscovery) during lawsuits, and responding to data requests like FOIA. That’s why we’re introducing RCS message archival, a new capability for fully managed Google Pixel devices. This feature helps your organization meet strict compliance needs while using the advanced security of Google Messages.
Simple and secure for compliance
Older methods for archiving text messages often relied on carrier-level logging, which is incompatible with modern encrypted messaging. Our new solution allows third-party archival apps to integrate directly with Google Messages on a work device. When configured by your IT organization on a fully managed device, the archival application is notified upon the receipt of each RCS message, not only when a message is sent or received, but also if a message is edited or deleted too. The archival app then reads the message data and makes it available to your IT organization. With archiving happening on the device itself, end-to-end encryption in transit is maintained.
This helps to ensure a more complete and accurate log of all RCS message interactions is captured for your records. It gives your organization a dependable, Android-supported solution for message archival, which is also backwards compatible with SMS and MMS messages as well. Employees will see a clear notification on their device whenever the archival feature is active.
Easy for IT admins, powerful for employees
IT administrators can enable RCS Archival through a simple configuration. You have full control to decide which devices have the feature turned on and which archival application you deploy for your organization.
This new capability, available on Google Pixel and other compatible Android Enterprise devices gives your employees all the benefits of RCS — like typing indicators, read receipts, and end-to-end encryption between Android devices — while ensuring your organization meets its regulatory requirements.
Today, Google RCS third-party vendors including Celltrust, Smarsh, and 3rd Eye have integrated with Google Messages for RCS archival, with more archival apps coming soon in 2026. This flexibility allows you to seamlessly deploy the archival solution that best fits your existing compliance infrastructure. Learn more about Android RCS Archival on our help center.
