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Huawei: Enable Use Simple Characters for SMS

If your text messages split into several SMS parts even though they look short, special characters like curly quotes, accented letters, or emoji are likely forcing Unicode encoding, which cuts the character limit per message. Huawei's Use simple characters option rewrites those characters into plain ASCII equivalents before sending, so a single SMS covers more text. Without an SMS flat rate, this setting can noticeably lower your messaging costs.

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VersionAndroid 10 · EMUI

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Step 1 of 5: Open **Messages**

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Android 10 · EMUI
Use Simple Characters for SMS – EMUI: step 1 – Open Messages
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Huawei

Use Simple Characters for SMS auf Huawei

Standard SMS uses a limited character set. As soon as one special character appears - a curly quote, an accented letter, an emoji, or certain punctuation - your phone switches the whole message to Unicode encoding.

Unicode encoding roughly halves the number of characters allowed per SMS segment. A message that would normally fit into one SMS can suddenly split into two or three, each billed separately if you have no SMS flat rate.

The Use simple characters option in EMUI addresses exactly this. When active, the Messages app automatically swaps special characters for their closest plain-text equivalent before sending, keeping the message inside the standard character set and segment limit.

You find the switch under Open MessagesOpen the menuOpen the settingsTap on AdvancedActivate or deactivate Use simple characters.

This setting only affects SMS, not messages sent through chat apps like WhatsApp or iMessage-style RCS, which use data instead of the SMS network. If you already have an SMS flat rate or send messages mainly over Wi-Fi based chat apps, the conversion brings little benefit and slightly changes how special characters or emoji appear to the recipient.

Turn it off again if you rely on exact formatting, such as foreign-language accents or symbols that must not be simplified.

Frequently asked questions

One special character - a curly quote, an em dash, an accented letter, or an emoji - can switch the whole SMS to Unicode encoding. Unicode segments hold far fewer characters than plain text ones, so the same text splits into multiple parts.