Why is the app duplicating messages in the backups on my Samsung phone?

Question

SyncTech Support · Accepted Answer

It appears that a recent update to the phone software on Samsung phones (most likely as part of deprecating Samsung's Messages app), the RCS messages are being stored as normal SMS/MMS messages. This is in addition to the messages getting stored as RCS messages.

Since SMS Backup & Restore backs up the separately stored RCS messages on Samsung phones, this results in the messages getting duplicated in the backups as they get backed up as both SMS/MMS as well as RCS.

If your backups contain duplicates, you can turn off the RCS backup option from Menu > Settings > Backup Settings and that should stop the duplicates from getting backed up.

<img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2227" src="https://www.synctech.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/disable-rcs-158x300.png" alt="" width="158" height="300" />

Note that there was an issue with older versions of the app that did not disable the RCS backup properly, so please ensure that you are using at least v10.21.003 of the app.