Today I want to address this question “how to get text messages from another phone sent to mine?” It crops up all the time so now I’ll clear things up in an easy to understand way.
I’ll look at why you might want to get someone’s text messages sent to your phone. Then I’ll show you how you can check text messages from another phone and how to automatically forward text messages to another phone.
Don’t worry it is easy enough and I have some interesting tools to help. So Let’s get started shall we?
Why Get Texts from Another Phone Sent to Mine?
There are several reasons why you might want to get text messages from another phone sent to yours. You can break this into two main categories:
For phone management purposes. Maybe you have two phones, for work and personal use and you want to get your texts forwarded to one phone. This can also be useful when traveling were you need to use a local SIM but still need to receive texts sent to your main phone number.
For text monitoring purposes. Here you might need to see who someone is texting by having the texts forwarded to your phone. The legal ways to use this is for monitoring your kids cell phones or your company phones. Just be aware that it is not legal to have your partner’s texts sent to your phone without their permission.
I’m going to cover some methods that will work for both situations. You’ll also see how a few of these work for Android phones and why the Apple iPhone is a bit different.
Text Forwarding For iPhones
In the next section I list some great SMS Forwarders available for Android phones. The problem is that these are not available for iPhone users. Apple do not allow these apps in their store but you still have some options.
You can have messages synced across your Apple devices with the same Apple ID. So you can read your messages on your iPhone and iPad etc. You go to Settings – Messages – Text Message Forwarding – then select the devices to see your messages. It’s definitely not ideal!
Keep reading though – I do have another solution for iPhone users that works below.
Using SMS Forwarders to Automatically Send Texts to Another Phone
There are a range of dedicated apps to help you manage this. Some are free and some cost money but most work in a similar way. With some you can link multiple devices and even have texts sent to your email address.
One thing to note is that none of these text forwarding apps are allowed in the Google Play Store. They are available as third party apps to download and use.
Google views them as potential spyware with security risks. To be honest if you use them sensibly they pose very little risk – just be sure to stick to the more popular ones you can trust.
I’ve picked out a few of the best Text Forwarding Apps:
SMS Forwarder
This is a Free app available for Android phones only. I liked this one as it is easy to install and use, plus it has enough features for most people.
You install SMS Forwarder on the phone you want the texts sent from and can choose to forward texts to your phone number or email (or both). One great feature is that you can forward the messages to a group of phone numbers or email addresses. Great for work phone management.
You can set various filtering options such as selecting only messages from certain contacts or all. You can view the message history and control any times or days you do not want forwarding to happen.
All in all this is a great basic solution suitable for most needs.
Phone Leash
Phone Leash is a paid app but it does come with some more advanced features. They have paid plans for personal and business use starting from $4.95. Note that they consider forwarding from your work phone to your personal phone as Personal use.
Again installation is easy – only for Android phones. You can forward text messages to your phone or email and can even reply from the other phone! This is a useful feature meaning you can just carry one phone and still text back and forth with the other.
Other features include texting from your PC, backups of all texts and call notifications.
AutoForward Text – Forward Texts to Email
The AutoForward Text app will only forward text messages to your email address – not your phone number. This isn’t such a big drawback as most of us access our emails on the phone these days.
There is a free trial period then it costs $14.95 per year. It comes with some useful features as you would expect. You can have texts forwarded to multiple email addresses, see all incoming and outgoing texts, filter by certain contacts and keywords. You can also see their call logs and history.
MightyText
MightyText is a bit different with some great features. There is a limited Free Version that allows up to 50 texts forwarded per month and a Pro Version from $6.67 per month.
It is more of a text message management system. As well as having text messages sent to another phone you can:
- Text from your computer or tablet in sync with your phone
- Get your phone notifications instantly on your PC
- Sync and store photos and videos from the phone on your PC
- Receive and reply to text messages using email
- Send bulk SMS messages and schedule them
- Use contact lists for repeat sending
- Restore messages back to your phone
Mighty Text is the most advanced forwarder I have tested with some great features if you need them. Once installed on the phone you want to get the messages from, you get access to a lot more information. It is almost like a monitoring app light. More on that below.
Using Spy Apps to Check Text Messages From Another Phone
If you are looking for more than text message management and need to actively monitor texts then a good spy app is a great solution. By using a spy or monitoring app you can get texts from another phone sent to yours – and the user will not know.
Now before you go all James Bond there are legal restrictions. It is perfectly legal to monitor your own kids cell phones and text messages. Plus you can legally monitor company owned phones as long as the user is notified.
These are the main reasons these spy apps were designed but of course they can be used in unethical ways. Just be aware that you can’t just install these apps on your spouse’s or boyfriend’s / girlfriend’s phone. Not legally.
So, above I listed a few SMS Forwarding apps, now I’m going to explain how to use phone spy software to check someone’s text messages from your phone. You might want to see my article covering how to hack someones text messages without having their phone – it covers legal hacks that work today.
These apps work in a slightly different way but have many advantages over the text forwarding method.
Firstly, they can be completely hidden from the user’s phone so they don’t know they are being monitored. This can be important if you are trying to see what your kids are up to. If they know that you see every text message they are likely to find other ways to message their friends.
Spy apps also offer much more than just text message monitoring. They can report almost everything they do on their phones.
You can see the phone location and where it has been over any period of time. You can see every photo and video on their phone. You get to see detailed call logs, emails, websites visited, their contact list and you can see messages sent and received on apps like Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and WhatsApp.
Another thing – you can get spy apps for the iPhone.
How They Work
Most of these apps need to be installed on the phone you want to monitor. (I’ll cover one method for the iPhone that doesn’t need installation). Once installed they monitor and collect all data covering the phone activity. This data is uploaded to the spy app servers where you can access the reports on any device with an internet connection.
So unlike the SMS Forwarding apps, the texts aren’t physically sent to your phone or email. But you get to see them by logging on to the online reporting dashboard. From here you can see all reports and download them if you like.
Now I want to explain something quickly. I write a lot about spy software and how these apps work on this website and have been using and testing them for years now. You need to take care when choosing a spy app.
Unfortunately there are a lot of apps to choose from and some are pretty crap – if not outright scams. I only recommend a few that I have tested and can stand over. Stick to reliable spy apps if you want to avoid problems. Here are my recommendations:
mSpy for Android and the iPhone
mSpy is probably the most popular monitoring app on the market and has been for a few years now. It works well, is easy to install and is competitively priced. With over 1 million users worldwide they are a safe bet.
As I mentioned you can use mSpy to check text messages from another phone plus so much more. They have some great parental control features such as app monitoring and app blocking. You can see a list of all the apps your kids are using and even choose to block those you don’t want them to have access to.
mSpy also cover an extensive list of messenger apps so you get to see all messages not just SMS texts.
I mentioned above that you can use some spy apps on the iPhone. mSpy have two versions for iPhone text monitoring. Their regular full featured spy app – which can be installed on any Jailbroken iPhone or Apple device. This works exactly like their Android version and is installed on the target device.
If Jailbreaking the iPhone is not possible they were the first company to come up with a No Jailbreak Version – read about it in detail here. It works by monitoring iPhone backups automated using Apple’s free iCloud storage. It doesn’t have all the features of their full version software but will monitor text messages no problem.
Remember that most of the SMS forwarders don’t work on the iPhone.
See my main mSpy review for lots more detail on what this app is capable of and how it all works:
FlexiSPY App
FlexiSPY is the most advanced spy app with some great features. Again they have full versions for Android and the iPhone – but they don’t have a No Jailbreak version. The good news is that FlexiSPY can easily report on all text message activity.
The reason they are seen as the most advanced is their call listening and recording features. With FlexiSPY you can listen to live voice calls and even record them. No other spy app can do this reliably.
Of course if your main goal is to get their text messages, the cheapest version of their app will do the job. See my main FlexiSPY review for all the details you need to make a decision:
uMobix Phone Monitoring
uMobix is a relatively new spy app that has been growing in popularity. It is similar to mSpy in terms of features and they also have a No Jailbreak version for the iPhone.
One thing that makes them stand out is how easy it is to install and use. They also offer great support. Check out my uMobix review for yourself and see how it compares.
In The End I hope I have more than covered how to get text messages sent from another phone to mine – or rather yours! I’ve covered how this can be great for managing your text messages especially if you have more than one phone.
I’ve also covered how you can use monitoring apps to check someone’s text messages from another phone. These apps give you the most comprehensive monitoring features ideal for parents trying to keep kids safe online.
Whether you want to monitor texts or make use of an SMS forwarder I think I have you covered. Check out the apps I have mentioned for yourself and see what one can best suit your needs. Good luck in your search!
