How to send text from your phone to your PC (without messaging yourself)

Sending a text to yourself on WhatsApp, Telegram or by email works on any phone, and that's why almost everyone does it. But every time it's the same routine: open the chat, paste, send, switch to the computer, open WhatsApp Web, find the message among your conversations and copy it. Your notes, links and passwords end up mixed with your real chats, and finding something from last week means scrolling.

The options below cut steps. None of them reads your phone's clipboard on its own (Android doesn't allow it since Android 10, except for the keyboard and the app on screen), but they get the text onto your PC with less friction.

For a one-off, use the free online clipboard. It runs in the browser and doesn't ask you to sign up.

1. 1On your phone, open the online clipboard and paste or type your text. You get a 6-character code.
2. 2On the PC, go to colurus.com/c and type the code.
3. 3Click Copy next to the text and paste it wherever you need it.

One code holds up to 5 texts, links or images, and everything is deleted after 24 hours. Anyone with the code can open it, but only the browser tab that created it can add or delete things. It also works the other way: paste on the PC and scan the QR code with your phone.

If you send text to your PC every day, an account saves you the code. Colurus is a clipboard in the cloud: what you paste stays in your account until you delete it, and you can copy it again on your phone, your laptop or your work PC.

1. 1On your phone, open colurus.com and sign in with Google.
2. 2Copy the text and tap Paste. It's saved.
3. 3On the PC, open Colurus with the same account, or reload the page if it's already open, and click the text to copy it.

Pin what you copy often (an address, an account number), search old texts, and keep links, screenshots and code in the same place. Colurus doesn't save every copy by itself: only what you paste, so throwaway copies stay out.

Phone Link copies and pastes between your phone and your PC on its own, but only with some Samsung, HONOR, OPPO, OnePlus, Realme, ASUS, vivo and Xiaomi phones. On any Android, the SwiftKey keyboard can sync your last copied text to the Windows clipboard history (Win + V) for one hour, with a personal Microsoft account. Our guide to copying and pasting between Android and Windows has the steps for both.

If there's no internet but your phone and PC share a Wi-Fi network, use an app that talks over the local network:

• LocalSend: free and open source, for Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and iPhone. You send text or files to the nearby device, which accepts them. It works with no internet connection.
• KDE Connect: free and open source. On Android 10 and later you tap Send clipboard in its notification, and the text is ready to paste on the PC.

Both need the app installed on each device. The online clipboard, Colurus, chats and email all need internet.

A link is text, so every method above works. In Colurus, a pasted link shows the page's title and image, so you can tell links apart at a glance, and clicking it opens the page on the PC. Handy for an article you found on your phone and want to read on a bigger screen.

• Once, no sign-up: the online clipboard with a code.
• Every day, and you want to find things again: a free Colurus account.
• Your phone works with Phone Link: turn on its copy and paste.
• No internet, same Wi-Fi: LocalSend or KDE Connect.

Still on Pushbullet? See our honest list of Pushbullet alternatives. Photos too, like AirDrop? See AirDrop for PC and Quick Share for Windows.