What you need to know
- Google Voice will soon lose the ability to forward text messages.
- Google attributed the loss of this feature to carriers blocking messages from the service.
- No timeline has been given on when users will lose the feature.
Google Voice is a useful forwarding service for those who prefer to use a phone number outside of their own personal number to communicate with others. It also allows users to link multiple devices to a Google Voice number, so calls and texts can be made or received on multiple devices from the same number. Unfortunately, it seems one of the most important features is being put on the chopping block.
According to a message spotted by 9to5Google on the Google Voice support page, text message forwarding will no longer be supported:
Important: Message forwarding to linked numbers will stop soon because mobile carriers have started to block these messages.
The message is a bit vague on both the timeline and the reasoning. As far as carriers are concerned, the reasoning could be due to spam blocking services that many of the best wireless carriers in the U.S. are implementing better protect subscribers from unwanted calls and messages. It would be an interesting turn of events since just last year, separate Google Voice and Google Fi numbers finally received the ability to work on the same account.
It's currently unknown when users will lose message forwarding capabilities or if this is a precursor to more Google Voice features being lost. We've reached out to Google for clarification.
According to 9to5Google, it may be sooner rather than later. Code found in the latest version of the app suggests users may soon be notified of the change. A line of text was found in the app that does not seem to be live yet, reading "Message forwarding to linked numbers will stop working soon."
