Make your Android phone interoperable with your PC.
Getting your Android phone to seamlessly connect to your PC isn’t as daunting as it used to be. There are several services that let you mirror notifications, reply to messages, and sync data between your phone and PC. Here are some of the best options currently available on both platforms.
Pushbullet
Pushbullet is the easiest way to send files between your Android phone to your PC. The app started out as a way to “push” links, files, and documents between devices, but has since evolved into a robust messaging platform. Along with the ability to mirror notifications from your phone onto your PC, Pushbullet lets you view and send text messages from your computer.
Pushbullet also lets you send files and links to your friends. All you need to do is add the email ID your friend used to register for the service, and you’ll be able to share messages, links, and files with ease. Then there’s the Channels feature, which offers notification feeds across categories, including news, sports, gaming, entertainment, and tech.
Pushbullet is available as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera, and you can download the Android app from the Play Store. The browser extensions let you access most of the functionality that Pushbullet has to offer, but if you want to access files on your computer remotely via your phone, then you need to install the Windows client.
Pushbullet is still the service to beat for notification mirroring and seamless transfer of files.
Using the native Windows client lets you remotely access files on your computer through your phone, and vice versa. Setting it up is easy: all you need to do is enable Remote Files access on both the Windows client and Android app, and you’ll be able to access files on your computer through your phone.
The service is now offered in two tiers — a free option that has most of the features you’re likely to use, and a pro version that costs $4.99 a month or $39.99 yearly that comes with universal copy and paste across all your devices, actionable notifications, and increased storage and file transfer limits. The free tier lets you send files up to 25MB in size and has a storage limit of 2GB, while the paid service lets you transfer files up to 1GB and offers 100GB of storage. You’ll also be able to send unlimited SMS messages on the paid plan, whereas in the free tier you’re limited to 100 per month.
Of all the pro features, the one that stands out is actionable notifications, which lets you reply to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Allo messages directly from your computer. Regardless of the tier, Pushbullet offers end-to-end encryption using AES-256 for notification mirroring, SMSes, and universal copy and paste.
Pushbullet offers tremendous value, and while its pricing leaves a lot to be desired, the free tier should be adequate for a majority of users interested in transferring files and syncing notifications between devices.
Download Pushbullet (free/$4.99 monthly)
Join
Join is very similar in functionality to Pushbullet, with the service also offering notification mirroring, the ability to reply to notifications from your computer, send and receive texts, share links, files and documents, as well as a universal clipboard. Tasker and Google Assistant integration is baked in as well, letting you extend the functionality of the service.
Join also offers end-to-end encryption, and you can locate your device remotely by making it ring. Join is available as a Chrome extension, a Windows 10 native client, and an Android app.
The main difference is that unlike Pushbullet’s yearly or monthly subscription plans, Join requires a one-time fee of $4.99 to unlock all the features. If you’d like to take a look, Join offers a 30-day trial with all the features enabled.
Download Join (free for 30 days)
Syncthing
Syncthing is similar to Lenovo’s ShareIt in that both services let you transfer files across devices. That’s where the similarities come to an end. Syncthing is a decentralized file sharing service that relies on an open source framework and encryption to secure your data.
With Syncthing, you essentially set up a server, and use it to connect to other devices. For instance, you can run a server on your phone, and connect to the server from your desktop computer to sync files between the two devices. Best of all, Syncthing is a free service, and its interface isn’t riddled with ads. You don’t even have to create a user account with the service, as it relies on unique identifiers for each device. Just enter the ID of the device you want to connect to, and you’ll be able to transfer files between the two with ease.
Download Syncthing (free)
Cloud storage services
Cloud storage services are different from utilities like Syncthing in that they act as centralized repositories of data. You can pick from a multitude of services based on your needs, including the likes of Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, and so on. Each service has a free tier that gives you a certain amount of storage, and you can upgrade your storage quota by paying a monthly or annual fee.
A free Dropbox account comes with 2GB of storage, and Dropbox Pro offers 1TB of storage for $9.99 a month or $99.99 yearly. You get 15GB of free cloud storage with Google Drive, and you can increase your quota to 100GB for $1.99 a month or $19.99 yearly. If you have more storage requirements, you can get 1TB of storage for $9.99 a month or $99.99 yearly.
All services mentioned above have robust native clients for Windows, as well as feature-rich Android versions. If you’re looking for a hassle-free way to sync files across several devices, a public cloud storage service is a good place to start.
Your turn
What service do you rely on to transfer data from your Android device to your computer? Let us know in the comments.
