Over the years we’ve featured a few different SMS-to-desktop programs, but none of them worked perfectly, and none of them fit everyone’s workflow. DeskSMS works amazingly well and lets you choose how you want to manage text messages on your computer. Any time you receive a text message on your Android phone, it’ll automatically forward them to a number of different services. If you have your IM client open all day, you can receive and respond to text messages through Google Talk, or you can send them to Gmail if you’re using it as your central, universal communications hub. Alternatively, you can just view them from the web interface on any computer, or a browser extension that puts the slick web interface in Chrome or Firefox’s toolbar.
It appears to work as intended with Australian mobile numbers, but it’s a little fiddly to set up and the Chrome extension is slow to load. You may be better off using the web interface. DeskSMS is a free download for Android, and has both Chrome and Firefox extensions as well as a web interface. Hit the links below to check it out, and let us know you go in the comments.
DeskSMS for Android [Android Market]
DeskSMS for Google Chrome [Chrome Web Store]
DeskSMS for Firefox [Firefox Add-Ons]
DeskSMS Web Interface
Greg
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 9:13 AMThe biggest problem with apps like this is that when you are looking at your phone, you lose all context of the conversation, making it almost useless for desk/on-the-go comms.
Whomever can come up with a solution so that SMSs are sync’d between desktop and phone will win this game.
Rhys
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 10:03 AMthe BEST Phone-To-Desktop???
Come on… have a look at sms2pc… its way better and ive been using for past year. its fantastic!
david
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 10:37 AMHave you looked at MightyText? They just announced that they are going to support all major browsers & tablets next week. https://www.facebook.com/mightytext/posts/194265490632703
April
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 12:32 PMI use MightyText and I really like it :)
Sam
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 4:33 PMI have REALLY tried to like MightyText (I even used it back when it was called “Texty”) – but I’ve always found it woeful.
Firstly, it doesn’t play nicely at all with JuiceDefender. Unless you have 3G CONSTANTLY on, your messages don’t get re-routed to your desktop, until such point that 3G is back on (by which time, its too late and the pop-up just annoys you)
The font they’ve used for it never seems to render properly, leaving everything looking disjointed and ugly.
I’m pretty fast on Swype, but give me a good old fashioned keyboard any day. I long for a GOOD desktop-SMS app that just works, without the headache.
Brandon Harris
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 3:32 AMI have Juice Defender, and I have Juice Defender on EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME (lol!)
I still get all my texts.
I’m not a fan of DeskSMS simply because I hate having those “1231371231@deskSMS” notification E-mails and pop-ups for the Google Chat.
I don’t get it with Browser Text nor with Might Text — only DeskSMS.
That was the only thing that stopped me from sticking with it.
Plus I really enjoy Mighty Text’s interface. I just wish there were a real desktop solution, rather than a browser solution.
mdjnewman
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 10:48 AMIt does sync to your phone, I just tried it.
Just a warning that it pollutes your google contacts with an extra two email addresses though, and I haven’t seen an option to remove these extra entries.
Brock
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 8:36 PMI did that, and had to revert my contacts back an hour. You might have to do yours a day. It’s for if you want to have Google Talk notifications. I do not.
Ruby
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 12:49 PMDoes it still work if your phone is flat or out of service?
Sam
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 4:35 PMI can say with 99.99% certainty that it won’t. Odds are this app simply “captures” your txt’s then on-forwards them as data packets via the internet.
They only way an SMS service would work without an active SIM (ie plugged in and switched on) would be if your telco provided some form of webportal where you can log into their database and access your messages – which sounds like a HUGE security risk if you ask me.
Joe
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 2:49 AMBuggy for me. I am on the stock messaging app – so no notification issues. It works on-and-off and text messages entered into the website version frequently get “stuck” and never send, or get sent much later. Sent some texts this morning and they finally got pushed to the recipients 20 minutes later. Two messages sent yesterday finally got delivered today.
I have tried just about every “desktop” sms there is and haven’t found one to be reliable enough to stick with it. For me, it has to be pretty responsive (as if you were sending directly from your phone) — not sending messages minutes later, having to refresh/restart/resync, etc.
I recently used Mighty Text and found that to also be buggy. But I have to say that MT worked more consistently than DeskSMS.
Regarding SMS2PC, I tried that one when it first came out in beta (free), but haven’t used it in a while. I don’t want to spend $3+ for something that may not work for me — like all the others so far :)