Phone Link, previously Your Phone, is a syncing software developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

to connect

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

PCs to Android and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

mobile devices to view notifications, make phone calls, use mobile apps amongst others, via the PC. It is a native component of

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...

(since version 1809) and

Windows 11 Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...

, where it is a UWP app and consists of a driver that communicates with the Link to Windows app on the mobile device. Phone Link makes use of

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

for voice calls, or

mobile data Mobile broadband is the marketing term for Wireless broadband, wireless Internet access via mobile network, mobile (cell) networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a Tablet computer, tablet/smartp ...

Features

Phone Link enables a PC to send (and receive)

text messages Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile phones, tablet computers, smartwatches, desktop computer, des ...

relayed from the mobile device, including both

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

and MMS, as well as RCS for Samsung Phones using Samsung Messages. It can also access the 2000 most recent photos on the connected phone. Audio that is played on the phone can also be controlled on the Phone Link interface, so long as the playing apps have media controls in the Android notification area. Phone Link can also be used to mirror the screen of an Android device; however this feature is currently only available on select devices with the Link to Windows service pre-installed. The app also has a cross-device copy and paste feature allowing users to send copied text and images between devices using the same copy and paste shortcuts on each device.

History

At its Build 2018 event on May 7, 2018, Microsoft presented the Your Phone app, which allowed users to use their PCs to see recent photos on their Android based phones, and to send SMS messages. Your Phone was released as part of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (1809), as a replacement of the legacy Phone Companion app. At Samsung's Galaxy Note10 launch event, Microsoft previewed the additional Your Phone feature of receiving phone calls directly on a PC via

. The feature was made available for all Android phones on February 20, 2020. At the same event it was revealed that Your Phone will ship on most

Samsung Galaxy Samsung Galaxy (; stylized as SΛMSUNG Galaxy since 2015 (except Japan where it omitted the Samsung branding up until 2023), previously stylized as Samsung GALAXY; abbreviated as SG) is a series of computing, Android mobile computing and wear ...

devices as part of a partnership with

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...

. In March 2022, Your Phone was rebranded to Phone Link and the interface was changed. At the same time, the Your Phone Companion app on mobile was also renamed, to Link to Windows. In April 2023, Microsoft started rolling out support for the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

on Windows 11 only.

References

{{Microsoft Windows components Android (operating system) Windows software 2018 software

Features

History

See also

References