Phone Link ignores some conversations

Rick, I was having the same issue. It was only one of my contacts not synching. I have a Pixel 7 Pro. The other thing that I notice is that I would send a message on my computer using Phone Link. It would say "Your message couldn't be sent. Retry. Well if I look on my phone, the message did send. Also, I would get a notification from the person that sent me a message in the Phone Link on my computer and I could respond out of the Notifications area, but it would not synch with the Messages area, so once you started to get new messages, it was hard to follow and it was not working as designed.

I read Emma's first post and she asked the following questions, though I was not sure why, but that led to do some investigation. It looks like Phone Link does not support RCS chats.

Before proceeding, I would like to narrow down the issue:                

• Are the missing conversations using standard SMS/MMS, or are they RCS chats in Google Messages? 
• Do the missing conversations appear correctly in the Google Messages app on your Pixel, but not in Phone Link? 

I did everything Emma said above in her posts, including the repair and reset. By the way, you cannot remove the Phone Link "app" from your computer as it is showing up as a system component now and not an "app". That is why it wasn't showing in your screen shot above.

I went into Google Messages and went into a contact that was working and one that was not. I went into details for that contact. On the contact that was not working, I noticed there was slide bar to Only send SMS & MMS messages. When that is not slid over, then End-to-end encryption is On. When you slide the button over to Only send SMS & MMS messages, End-to-end encryption automatically turns off and Phone Link will start to synch the messages. I confirmed it by sliding it back and trying to send a message on my computer and I confirmed this fixed it for me. If you click on the Learn more link on your phone, you will see it goes to information about RCS chats and shows you the advantages of RCS over SMS/MMS.

I hope this helps you, or someone else that may be having the same problem. It took me quite awhile to find this page. The normal Microsoft Support Pages were of no help.

this is what I came looking for, and it also tells me that the apps are now useless until M$ can figure out how to work with RCS. I am not going to go change all these chats to disable RCS, when RCS is the only reason I use Google Messenger in the first place.
Turning off security should never be an answer.. might as well tell me to turn off the alarm system on my house.. or disable my firewalls on my systems. Nope, and nope.

Welcome Rick Calder,

I understand how frustrating it can be when Phone Link is only syncing some text message conversations on your Google Pixel 9, while messages from many personal contacts are no longer appearing or updating in the Phone Link app on Windows 11. 

Before proceeding, I would like to narrow down the issue:                

• Are the missing conversations using standard SMS/MMS, or are they RCS chats in Google Messages? 
• Do the missing conversations appear correctly in the Google Messages app on your Pixel, but not in Phone Link? 

In the meantime, you can try these steps below to troubleshoot the issue:  

Option 1: Verify Phone Link permissions on the phone  

• Open Settings > Apps > Link to Windows > Permissions 
• Ensure SMS, Contacts, Notifications, and Phone permissions are allowed 

Option 2: Check battery optimization settings  

• Open Settings > Apps > Link to Windows 
• Select Battery 
• Set to Unrestricted or exclude it from battery optimization 

Option 3: Refresh Phone Link message synchronization  

• Open Phone Link on the PC 
• Go to Settings > Features > Messages 
• Turn Messages off, wait a few minutes, then enable it again 

Option 4: Update related apps  

• Update Phone Link from Microsoft Store 
• Update Link to Windows and Google Messages from Google Play Store 

Option 5: Reset Phone Link on Windows  

• Open Settings > Apps > Installed apps 
• Find Phone Link > Advanced options 
• Select Repair, then Reset if Repair does not help 

I hope the steps above help you deal with your issue. 

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