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My Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra updated today (10 December 2024). Now I can't access my text messages without choosing a Google account to attach them to. I have multiple Google accounts and I've never attached my text messages to one, nor do I want to.

My accounts are aliases (as is my account here, CJ Dennis is not my real name!) since I don't want to dox myself. The last thing I want is people being able to scrape my personal information from a Google API.

How can I access my messages with Google Messages but without selecting an account?

choose an account instead of reading messages

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I was able to solve it in the following way

  1. Settings --> Apps --> Messages --> ... --> Uninstall updates
  2. Open Messages app and choice an option to "Use Messages without an account"
  3. Even if uninstaller showed that uninstall updates will erase all app data all SMS remained untouched

Now, we can access all the messages without an account and it continue to work after subsequent app update to the latest version - hm, but not so long...

Android 15/16

Since Android 15/16 (might be a vendor specific), that is not working anymore. One way to overcome that limitation would be to use a third-party messaging apps like https://github.com/octoshrimpy/quik (GPL-3.0 license).

Vendor specific
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  • 2
    In case it's as unclear to anyone else as it was to me, the ... this answer says to tap after Messages is a kebab menu icon at the top-right corner of the screen. Commented Jan 27 at 20:54
  • CAREFUL with this - uninstall updates will erase all app data, so you'll lose any previously sent or received text messages!! Commented Jun 11 at 14:55
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    On my Samsung A24 phone running Android 14, I ignored the app update and continued using the old version. But after updating to Android 15, I couldn't access messages without an account. Searching on the phone showed another messaging app by Samsung, also called "Messages" which is confusing. So I switched to Samsung "Messages" app. Commented Jul 14 at 16:36

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