Android Messaging, Part II: Life Limped Along at Sub-sonic Speeds

In Part I[a], I discussed the state of “Native Messaging” services in FOSS[b] Android forks/builds, and why RCS might never be coming to these OSes.

What does that leave us with? Well, SMS and MMS, of course, but using what client?

Unfortunately, there is (of course) no one good answer to this.

I’ve tried every single FOSS SMS/MMS client for Android I could get my hands on. Here’s a list of them, and the pros and cons of each:

• AOSP Messaging client[a]

• Pros

• Fully-featured SMS & MMS, allows sharing photos, videos, contacts, and audio
• Performant and straight-forward
• Shares fairly high-quality photos (relative to MMS’ rather paltry capabilities)

• Cons

• Hasn’t seen an update in many years
• No search function
• On my carrier at least, it fails to send multiple photos at once. I have to send one. photo. per. message.

• QUIK[a] (forked from QKSMS)

• Pros

• Performant and good UI
• Can send multiple photos (up to three, I think) in the same message without any issues (on my device, anyway)
• Excellent and fast search function
• Some advanced features like delayed send (for those experiencing difficulty with impulse control 😁)

• Cons

• Cannot send videos (this is a very minor con, as MMS videos are essentially worthless)
• The photos it sends are of a considerably lower quality than the AOSP Messaging client (on my device/carrier, at least)
• Cannot natively view contacts; you must open contacts shared with you via a contacts application (which usually just imports them directly without viewing) or a text editor (kludgy, but it works)

• Fossify SMS Messenger[a] (forked from Simple Mobile Tools SMS Messenger)

• Pros

• Sends MMS photos well
• Search function
• Lots of configuration options

• Cons

• Poor performance/stability — on my rather large SMS database, Fossify SMS causes the phone to run rather hot and throws a lot of Java errors. It can’t seem to handle my years of texting history (which I have to keep for professional reasons)

Aaaaand, that’s literally it. I cannot find a single other SMS/MMS client on F-Droid. There is Deku SMS, which adds a layer of encryption, but it does not support MMS at all (last I checked), but rather sends photos over SMS (only to other users of the same program.

Honorable Mention: DeltaChat[a] — This is not an SMS/MMS client at all, but rather an email client masquerading as a chat application. This may be what I end up using once I finally give up on texting.