Google Voice will soon discontinue the ability to forward text messages to other phone numbers, has said a report. It is one of the handier features of Google Voice with which users can send text messages via their phone’s original number and messaging app. However, a report from 9to5Google has reportedly found that the service will no longer be able to forward text messages to other phone numbers. It means that Google Voice will soon lose its message forwarding capability, most likely after a few days.
Recently, the tech giant started rolling out an update to the Google Voice app via the Play Store that brought version 2021.10. But, the APK Insight team of 9to5Google has reportedly found a line in the code that suggests the message forwarding to phones will be discontinued. However, the current version of the app still has the feature and the notice does not appear to be live in the Android app or web apps, says the report.
Google Voice Message Forwarding Feature
With the message forwarding feature, Google Voice allows users to send a copy of their incoming messages to their carrier-based phone numbers. Not just this, the service also allows users to reply to these messages directly from the default messaging app without opening the Google Voice app on their phones. Moreover, the messages can also be forwarded to an email address. But unfortunately, the feature is for some reason being discontinued and you won’t be able to forward your incoming Google Voice messages to your phone number.
Reportedly, the tech giant has also updated its support page about Google Voice’s message forwarding feature. Besides, mobile carriers have also started blocking these messages, so message forwarding to linked numbers will stop soon in either case. So it looks like Google wants to discontinue the forwarding feature because of its numbers used for the forwarding feature being blocked by carriers. Mobile carriers in the US are reported to have begun blocking the incoming messages from “shadow numbers,” which includes Google Voice’s numbers too.
As of now, the reported change isn’t live on Android or web apps, and there’s no specific timeline shared by Google either. But, it looks like the feature will no longer work after the company releases its next stable update for the Google Voice app. On the other hand, the email-based forwarding will continue to work as normal.
