A Pushbullet alternative for SMS and notifications

2026-09-12

For a decade Pushbullet was the answer to "how do I see my phone's texts on my laptop". The app is still downloadable, but development stopped years ago, the Chrome extension was removed from the store, and the SMS sync depends on Android permissions that Google has since restricted. People keep asking for a replacement, and the honest answer is that no single app does everything Pushbullet did, because the parts serve different needs.

What Pushbullet actually did

Three things, bundled:

1. Mirrored phone notifications to a desktop browser. 2. SMS on the desktop — read and reply from a browser tab. 3. Push files and links between your devices.

If you mostly want (3), you do not need anything below — every messenger and cloud drive does that now. The interesting gap is (1) and (2), and the reason they are hard to replace is the reason Pushbullet faded: Google now requires an app that reads SMS to justify it under a narrow set of use cases, and "show my texts in a browser" is not one of them.

What changed in the rules

Since 2019 an Android app can only hold SMS permissions if it is the default SMS app or fits one of Google's exceptions. The exception that fits this problem is device automation: an app that acts on incoming messages according to rules the user set. That reframing matters. A replacement is not "my phone mirrored to a screen" — it is "when a text arrives, do this with it", where this is "put it in Slack" or "email it to me".

That is a better fit for how most people used Pushbullet anyway: they did not want to read every text on the laptop, they wanted the verification codes, the delivery updates and the customer messages to reach them where they were working.

Pushferry as the replacement for texts and notifications

Pushferry takes the automation approach. An app on the Android phone watches incoming SMS and — optionally — the notifications of apps you tick, and forwards them where you choose:

• Slack or Discord — a channel you already have open all day.
• Email — your inbox, a shared support address, or a ticketing system.
• Telegram — a chat on your desktop and your other phone at once.
• A webhook — your own script, n8n, Make, or Zapier.
• Another phone number — plain SMS forwarding when a second person needs the same texts.

Rules decide what goes where: by sender, by keyword, by SIM card. Verification codes to your own Telegram, customer texts to the team's Slack, everything else nowhere.

Replying from the desktop is different from Pushbullet's mirrored conversation view. Pushferry gives the phone a small API — send a text from its number with one HTTP call — so replying from Slack means a short automation rather than a built-in chat window. If two-way chat in a browser is the thing you cannot live without, this is the honest limitation.

What it does better than Pushbullet did

• It keeps working on a phone you are not using. Pushbullet assumed the phone in your pocket; Pushferry is built for the spare phone in a drawer with the business SIM in it, kept awake and reconnecting on its own.
• Messages are not stored. Pushbullet synced everything through its servers. Pushferry's phone app sends to Slack, Discord and webhooks directly; the servers keep a log of what arrived and whether it was delivered, not the text.
• Notifications go to a channel, not just a screen. Mirroring was for one person at one desk. A Slack channel is for a team.
• It is priced per phone, with a free tier. One phone with unlimited forwarding costs nothing.

Other options, honestly

• Your phone maker's link app (Samsung Link to Windows, Microsoft Phone Link, Apple's Continuity for iPhone users) mirrors SMS to one PC well. Nothing goes to a team channel, and nothing keeps working when the phone is not next to that PC.
• Google Messages for web shows your own SMS in a browser. One phone, one person, phone must be online, no forwarding anywhere else.
• Carrier SMS-to-email, where it still exists, forwards texts to one address with no filtering.
• Self-hosted SMS gateways (open-source Android apps with a REST API) give developers full control and cost nothing beyond the phone; they generally assume you will write the Slack or email part yourself.

If you liked Pushbullet because it was a product rather than a project — install, tick a box, done — the automation route is the closest thing to that today, and forwarding to where you work turns out to be more useful than mirroring to where you sit.