When the question is posed, it often sounds like a pretty shady question. How do I receive text messages on two phones? It almost sounds as if it’s a spy routine on another phone. However, there are legitimate reasons for doing this, especially if you have work and business phones.
For iPhones, you will have to use both message forwarding and sign into both devices under the same Apple ID. For Android phones, you will need to download certain apps that will allow you to have SMS texts received on one phone, sent to another.
There are several apps, both on the Apple App Store and on the Google Play Store, that will facilitate text messages going to two different phones, however, none of these apps are completely foolproof and occasionally, some texts will slip through to the void, never to be found again, outside of the original phone it was sent to.
Text Messages on Two iPhones
When it comes to sending texts to two iPhones, it can sometimes get complicated, especially when dealing with Apple’s user authentication features on either phone, using the same Apple ID.
The idea is that you are already signed in under your Apple ID on your iPhone and you want to sign into the other iPhone, using the same Apple ID. Apple will want to send codes from the new phone to the old phone to verify that you are signing in to the new phone.
Once you’re signed in to the new iPhone, Apple will want to verify that you are still signed in to the other iPhone and it’s a great, big, gigantic headache trying to get the two synchronized.
While you can retrieve your texts and the texts from the other iPhone from iCloud, you can’t do it by accessing iCloud from your phone, because that would be too simple for the likes of Apple.
Apple wants you to get on the computer and download iTunes, where you can then get onto the cloud and see the text messages that might or might not be there at all. You can also go to settings and enable “Text Message Forwarding.”
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to Messages.
- On the Messages screen, scroll down and select Text Message Forwarding.
- If you are signed in to the other iPhone, it should appear here.
- Toggle the option to On.
Now pick up the other iPhone and do the same thing, unless you are trying to hide the fact that the other iPhone is now sending and receiving texts on this phone. Either way, you will now see all of the incoming and outgoing texts on your iPhone, that are received from the other iPhone.
Text Messages on Two Androids
Android phones are a little bit different. You basically need to download an app on both phones that allow for SMS forwarding. For instance, Forward SMS Texting is a pretty popular choice among Android users.
You can also download the Google Voice app from the Google Play Store as well. Either way, you’re using the same setup to get the same job done.
- Open the Google Play Store.
- In the search bar, type in Google Voice.
- Install Google Voice.
- Do the same thing on the other device.
- Launch the app.
- Sign in with your Google Account.
- Do the same thing on every other device that you want on the same account.
Google Voice keeps a lot of your messaging type of activities in a single folder that you can access within the app. You’re not sending text messages and checking them in the traditional messaging app that comes with your Android phone.
Google Voice simply syncs all of it together and compiles it in a single folder that you will primarily access on one phone. Every device that is signed into your Google account will have the text messages on that device compiled here.
You can also add a Google Widget to your home screen so that all of the messages from all of the phones on your Google Voice account are easy to access within that widget. It’s a good idea to create one on the home screen for quick and seamless response and access time.
Optional Apps
The problem with optional apps is that they always want a lot of money for the service. These are all, without exception, spying apps that are designed to quietly operate in the background of your wife’s, husband’s, or child’s phone and relay those messages to an app or desktop website that you can access.
The problem is, it costs a good deal of money in general, and it’s not always as easy as it looks, especially when it comes down to what information the app provides and what it doesn’t. We’re not going to recommend any of those apps here but we can show you where to go to find them.
The Google Play Store and the Apple App Store are saturated in these kinds of apps. Prepare yourself for a lot of homework when it comes to apps that share information between two phones.
You will often find that some of the apps are highly reviewed, only to find out that it is essentially a location and parental control app. Apps that steal texts or convey texts from one phone to another are a lot shadier and you should be very wary when dealing with these apps.
For one, they will often cost you a pretty penny in exchange for poor or dodgy performance, where you will receive some texts but not all of them. Some practically beg you to download their app, only to operate almost fully on a desktop at an exorbitant cost.
The point is if you want to go this route, be very careful and do your due diligence.
Final Word
Receiving the same messages on two different phones will probably surprise you in terms of how much legwork you have to do and almost none of the options are 100% accurate and workable. If you decide to go the app route, stick with what you know and always do your homework.
