How do I turn off SMS/MMS send for texts

[Raymond Seward]

Ultra S22 Note ATT Phone

My phone sends SMS/MMS texts to a SINGLE number rather than just a regular text message. How do I turn this off?? I have already followed instructions found on YouTube & through Google searches to no avail.

Thanks

Ray

 

[o4liberty]

Don't understand what you are explaining.

 

[Raymond Seward]

My old S20 used to send a normal text when texting to a single phone number. It would change to SMS/MMS when texting to 2 numbers (the same message). I want my new phone to send a text to a single number WITHOUT using SMS/MMS.
HTH
Thanks for the reply
Ray

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

An SMS is a "normal text".

 

[Raymond Seward]

OK. Thanks for correcting me. It is ending ALL texts as MMS.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

What makes you think that?

 

[nnd_newbie]

@Raymond Seward Do you use special characters? Do you use emoticons? What app do you use? Google Messages, Samsung Messages?

 

[justafew]

OK. Thanks for correcting me. It is ending ALL texts as MMS.

I'm not sure how you can tell that. Typically a text message is SMS (short messaging services) and it converts to MMS (Multimedia) either when there is a picture/video attached or once the length of your text message goes past a certain number of characters that SMS is limited to (can't recall the number).
If you are using Google Messages, you will see for someone you are sending to "Texting with NAME (SMS/MMS)". This just distinguishes between friends who may be using RCS (Rich Communication) and those who don't and it reverts back to SMS/MMS. The SMS/MMS just means that it's using whichever is appropriate, but it can't use RCS (i.e. someone using an iPhone can't use RCS so your phone falls back to SMS/MMS service to communicate with them).

 

[Raymond Seward]

What prompts my question is this: On occasion, and only specific numbers, I cannot send texts to them. I can receive texts from them but the msg gets bounced when I reply. This is when I send a plain text message and no pics or emoticons. I am assuming that they cannot receive MMS texts and I think that is the way I am sending. These are people I don't know so I'm reluctant to ask them ?'s about their phone. (I buy & sell stuff & that's why I don't know them) I use Google messaging. Thanks for helping & educating me.

 

[nnd_newbie]

You said "the message gets bounced to you". Do you get any error message when it happens?

 

[VidJunky]

I have to play devil's advocate on this one, at least a little, is it possible that they are ignoring you? You did mention sales...

Sorry I just have a few questions for troubleshooting purposes.

You say that it is only specific [certain] numbers. Are you messaging these same numbers regularly? After you make the change are you then able to message without any further intervention or do you then have to do it every time?

Have they ever gotten your messages without doing any extra steps first?

You say that simply typing and pressing send causes messages to fail, then go on to say that you change something which allows it to either be sent or be received. What is the change you make or the thing you do to allows this? Please describe this process in detail?

Are you messaging from the conversation inside of the app or in a pop-up?

You say the message gets bounced, do you get an error message telling you there was a problem, they just don't reply for a long time and when you reach out they tell you they never got anything or how do you know the messages are not going through?

Did simple messaging ever work for any of the numbers in question? So like one day everything was humming along and then there was this one message that started it all. After that things were never the same and you had to find this work around.

 

[nnd_newbie]

You can tell if you send MMS or SMS by looking under the "Send" icon, but I doubt that is the reason.



I suggest you follow my predecessor advice, and just provide us with the details what is happening when you try to send a message: do you get error message? is it your phone error message or do you get it from your provider as text message? etc.

Maybe take a screenshot of a message and of an error? And don't jump too fast to conclusions.

 

[Raymond Seward]

No. It doesn't happen all the time. Example: Guy sent me a text with his address so I could PU an item I wanted. I responded and it immediately came back saying Error Invalid # and then displayed the #. The # Displayed was without an area code. so I added the area code and it came back invalid #. I called the guy and went and picked up the item so he wasn't ignoring me. I even showed him the error that I got. The call went through but not the text. This does NOT happen all the time, just occasionally. Error #6831762. It's annoying to me. I'm typing from a PC and not my phone. Don't know how to get a screenshot here. What I changed was the Send text SMS/MMS. I turned that off. If a text bounces, I am never able to send it no matter what I do. Hopefully this helps with the questions you have. Thank you for helping me.

 

[VidJunky]

I tried just looking up your error code but I get nothing. Usually in cases like this it is important to know the entire message as well as the code. Have you told us what app you're using? I've skimmed the thread a couple of times and don't see it. In the meantime, this is perplexing. You get a text from the person then open the app, not in the pop-up or anything but in the app fully opened, and attempt to reply and the reply fails for area code then for this non-descript error code... The thing you said was changed, I don't find any option worded or listed that way in the Samsung app so it's hard for me to know what changed when you did that. It almost sounds like you said send everything SMS style but if your app was working properly it should have already been able to switch and pick the correct method for the message being sent. Which now makes me think its the app and not the number or the message or any of that.

Let's go back to basics. Let's try clearing the app cache and possibly the app data.

Settings>Apps>your messaging app>Storage>Clear cache/Clear data.

I would clear the cache first and see how things progress. Since this is an issue that you cannot recreate at will it will be harder to know when or if we've made a difference. Or you can do both and then wait and see. Might be the way to go. If there is anything you want to keep or feel you need from your message threads I would get a backup app that saves SMS and MMS and tuck those away before clearing the data. If you were using an app like Next SMS or Textra clearing the data wouldn't be an issue but I'm afraid if you're using Samsung's app that you might loose your messages. With third party apps the message never really leave the base app. They are always there, you just interact with them from a different app. It's kind of like a phone case.
The case covers the volume buttons but you press the case buttons to get results. Everything kind of goes through the base app you just use a different app to do these things. It isn't exactly like that but you get the idea. I just want to be sure that you're protected.

Let us know the results, or if you go forever without it happening again we know what changed.

Best wishes.