KDE Connect
Links your phone to your desktop for notifications, files, clipboard and a remote control.
Our verdict
KDE Connect is the Linux answer to Phone Link on Windows, and in several ways it does more. Pair your phone once and notifications, messages, battery level, files and the clipboard flow between the two.
The small things are what win people over. Answering a text from the keyboard, using the phone as a trackpad, pausing a video on the computer when a call comes in, and sending a photo to the desktop by tapping share.
Install it from your own app store rather than Flathub, since the sandboxing that Flatpak applies gets in the way of what it needs to do. It is included and ready on KDE Plasma systems. On GNOME you add a companion extension to get the same panel. The phone app is free on Android, and the iPhone version can do less because Apple restricts what apps may access.
What's good
- Phone notifications and text messages appear on the desktop and can be replied to
- Shared clipboard, so something copied on the phone pastes on the computer
- Turns the phone into a remote control for media and slide presentations
What to know first
- Not on Flathub, so you install it from your distribution's app store instead
- Both devices must be on the same wifi network
- Works best on the KDE Plasma desktop, and needs an extra piece installed on GNOME
The details
- Cost
- Free
- Open source
- Yes (GPL-2.0-or-later)
- How you install it
- .deb installer, .rpm installer, Built-in app store
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