Back in 2019, Microsoft lastly obtained its personal system for managing Android notifications from Windows. Since then, it has been attainable to see notifications out of your Android telephone in your Windows 10 or 11 PC as they arrive and to tug up your complete SMS historical past together with any pending notifications on demand. You may even reply to messages and compose new texts proper out of your pc. Previously known as Your Phone, the Windows app has lately (and appropriately) been renamed Phone Link.

Here’s find out how to get began. (These instructions assume you’ve up to date your PC to Windows 11, however the course of might be comparable for Windows 10.) You’re going to be going backwards and forwards out of your pc to your telephone, so get set.

First, in your Windows pc, be sure to have the most recent model of the Your Phone app:

• Open the Microsoft Store and seek for Phone Link.
• If the app isn’t already put in, set up it.
• If the app is put in, click on Open.
• You’ll be dropped at the Your Phone app. Click Get began.
• You’ll be reminded of which Microsoft account you’re signed into. Unless you wish to change accounts, click on Continue.

Got it? Good. Time to maneuver to the telephone aspect of issues.

• You’ll be given directions on the place to go in your Android telephone to put in the Link to Windows app. For most telephones, you’ll kind within the net hyperlink offered, or you’ll be able to seek for it in the Play Store by yourself after which set up it. If you’ve gotten a Surface Duo or sure Samsung telephones, Link to Windows will already be put in.
• Open the Link to Windows app, and faucet Link your telephone and PC.

Now, again to your pc.

• You ought to see a checkbox that claims I’ve the Link to Windows app prepared. Check it, after which click on on Pair with QR code. You’ll get a pop-up with a QR code.

Back to your telephone

• You ought to see a field asking whether or not the QR code in your PC is prepared. Since it’s, faucet Continue in your telephone. Give Link to Windows permission to take photos and report video.
• Scan the QR Code on the pc together with your telephone. It ought to join.
• Grant the app the assorted permissions it requests.
• You’ll be warned that staying related could affect your battery life. Tap Continue, after which both permit or deny it permission to run within the background.
• Your telephone will let you know to examine your pc, and your pc will let you know that you simply’re all set.

On your pc

• You’ll be welcomed to the app and invited to pin it to your Windows 11 taskbar. You’ll then be launched to every part you are able to do, similar to see notifications, ship textual content messages, view photographs, or make a name.

But you’re not fairly completed but. There’s only one little bit of setup left, the half that enables notifications to undergo.

• If you’re nonetheless within the introductory display, you’ll be able to click on on See my notifications. Otherwise, when you’re in the principle Phone Link app window, you’ll see Notifications within the left-hand menu; click on on that. You’ll be requested for permission to sync notifications.
• Click on Open settings on telephone. On your telephone, you must have been dropped at Device and app notifications. Find the Link to Windows app within the record and activate the toggle beside it.
• Tap Allow on the affirmation window that seems.

That’s it! Any notifications you get in your telephone will now transfer into the Phone Link app. You can obtain and reply to textual content messages, view your photographs, and even make calls (so long as they’re linked by way of Bluetooth). You may management 4 options of your telephone by way of buttons: Do Not Disturb; Bluetooth; quantity on / off; and audio participant on / off.

Update April 8, 2022, 11:45AM ET: This article was initially printed on July thirtieth, 2019. It has been up to date to mirror adjustments within the app and the working system.