phone link

Microsoft’s Phone Link is testing a practical — if imperfect — way to make Android apps feel less like tiny islands on a Windows 11 desktop: an Expanded view option that stretches streamed apps beyond the cramped, phone-sized window they’ve been trapped in for years. The feature appears in the...

Microsoft’s latest tweak to Phone Link — a quietly rolling “Expanded Mode” for streamed Android apps — is a small change with outsized implications: it makes mobile apps feel less like phone-shaped islands on a desktop and more like first-class Windows windows, but it also exposes the...

Microsoft's Phone Link is finally addressing one of the most persistent irritations when running Android apps on a Windows 11 desktop: apps that stubbornly appear as narrow, phone‑sized islands on a wide monitor. A new expanded view toggle — currently rolling out to Insiders and being trialled...

Microsoft’s Phone Link is quietly getting a usability upgrade that finally makes streamed Android apps behave more like native Windows windows — but the feature is early, uneven, and still hamstrung by phone-first app design and device gating. Background Phone Link (formerly Your Phone) has been...

Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 Insider build finally gives Android-tethered users a genuinely useful handoff: you can now resume certain activities from supported Android phones directly on a Windows PC with a single click — not by streaming your phone screen, but by handing the activity’s...

Microsoft’s latest Insider preview, delivered as Windows 11 Build 26220.7271 (KB5070307), expands the OS’s cross-device resume capabilities — allowing more Android phones and apps to hand off activities to a PC — while also introducing point-in-time restore, Fluid Dictation in Voice Typing...

Microsoft’s latest scoped Windows 11 update bundles a handful of tidy, productivity‑first tweaks — most notably a reworked chat surface that is now the free Microsoft Teams experience, tighter phone messaging via Phone Link inside Teams, and a Start menu change that labels built‑in apps as...

Microsoft’s Windows 11 Start menu has been rebuilt from the ground up in the November 2025 update, and the change is more than cosmetic: the new Start is a single, vertically scrollable launcher that surfaces the full All‑apps inventory on the main page, offers three distinct browsing modes...

If you want the easiest, free way to send and receive Android texts from your Windows PC, Microsoft’s Phone Link (with the companion Link to Windows app on Android) is the best place to start — it lets you read and reply to SMS/MMS, handle calls, view recent photos, get phone notifications, and...

Outlook and Microsoft now make it possible to sign in using QR codes — whether you want to add your Outlook account to the mobile app quickly, enable passwordless sign‑ins with Microsoft Authenticator, or pair companion devices with Windows — and understanding the different QR workflows, their...

Microsoft is quietly redirecting Phone Link’s built‑in photo gallery into File Explorer, replacing the app’s visual, recency‑sorted Photos tab with a banner that sends you to your phone’s storage inside File Explorer and urging users to “enjoy a better Photos experience” there. Background Phone...

Microsoft has quietly started redirecting the Phone Link app’s built‑in photo gallery to File Explorer, effectively removing the “Photos” viewing experience from Phone Link and asking Windows 11 users to manage mobile images through File Explorer instead. This change is already visible as an...

Microsoft has quietly begun removing the Phone Link app’s built‑in Photos viewer and redirecting users to File Explorer, telling Windows 11 owners to browse and manage mobile photos from a mounted mobile device entry instead of the app’s curated gallery view. Background / Overview Phone Link...

Microsoft is quietly moving the Phone Link app’s in-built gallery into File Explorer, removing the standalone "Photos" view from the Phone Link interface and directing users to manage mobile images and videos through Windows’ file manager instead. Background Phone Link has long been Microsoft’s...

Microsoft is quietly moving the Phone Link app’s built‑in photo gallery into File Explorer, removing the Photos gallery from Phone Link and nudging users to manage mobile photos and videos through Windows’ File Explorer instead. This change is already appearing as an in‑app banner in Phone Link...

Microsoft is quietly moving the Phone Link app’s built-in photo gallery into File Explorer, replacing the in‑app viewer with a File Explorer–based experience and prompting users to switch to the Mobile Devices/File Explorer flow instead. Background Phone Link (formerly Your Phone) has been one...

Microsoft quietly pulled the plug on the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA), but that doesn’t mean Windows 11 users are bereft of Android apps — they aren’t tied to Google Play on the desktop the way they once were, and there are safe, practical paths to keep using Android utilities on a PC...

Phone Link — Microsoft’s bridge between smartphones and Windows — can turn two devices into a single, remarkably productive workspace, but the feature set and reliability you experience in 2025 still depend on device model, OS version, app permissions, and a few networking and driver details...

Microsoft’s Phone Link has moved from a convenience utility into a central continuity layer that can genuinely reshape day‑to‑day workflows — bridging messages, calls, photos, app content and device actions between smartphones and Windows PCs in ways that matter for productivity, security, and...

In 2025, linking an Android smartphone with a Windows PC is no longer a niche convenience — it’s a mainstream productivity layer that can replace routine device switching for millions of users. Microsoft’s Phone Link (the Windows desktop component) and the companion Link to Windows app on...