Phone Link

Windows 11 can integrate with your iPhone or Android phone through a Phone Link app and other in-box features. But the experience varies depending on which phone model you have.

There are three levels of capabilities:

• iPhone: Because of Apple lock-down limitations, this is the most basic experience. You can check and clear notifications, send and reply to messages (though group messages and image and video sharing are not supported), make and take phone calls, and view your contacts.
• Most Android phones. You can check, pin, and clear notifications; send and reply to text messages and send photos, emojis, GIFs, and media via text; make and take phone calls; view and search your contacts; view and share your 2,000 most recent phone-based photos and screenshots; toggle Do not disturb mode on your phone; mute your phone when there is sound playing; and play, pause, and skip songs playing on your phone.
• Recent Samsung Galaxy flagship phones. This is the most complete experience. You can do everything those with other Android phones can do plus interact with your phone-based apps and the entire phone screen remotely, drag and drop files between your PC and your phone, and use a unique Instant hotspot feature.

Tip: Phone integration with Windows 11 requires you to sign in with a Microsoft account (MSA).

Defaults

Windows 11 includes native integration with modern smartphones through two primary interfaces:

• Mobile devices settings. This page in the Settings app (at Bluetooth & devices > Mobile devices) is where you determine whether this PC can integrate with the features on your phone. It’s disabled by default, though it may be enabled on a new PC if you used this functionality on a previous PC.

• Phone Link. This app is the primary interface for interacting with the features on your phone. It’s included with Windows 11 by default.

Once you have enabled mobile device connectivity and configured Phone Link to work with your phone, you will see various cross-device integration features between your phone and PC appear in Phone Link and throughout Windows 11 as described throughout this chapter.

Initial configuration

To get started with the phone integration features in Windows 11, the following must be true:

• Your PC and phone are connected to the same Wi-Fi network
• Your PC supports Bluetooth Low Energy (LE)
• You must sign in to your PC using a Microsoft account (MSA)

Now, open the Phone Link app on your PC and sign in to your MSA if required.

Here, you must choose between an Android phone and an iPhone. Follow the steps below depending on which type of phone you have.

iPhone

When you click “iPhone,” you’re presented with a QR code that you scan with your iPhone’s camera. Doing so will cause your iPhone to run an app clip version of the Link to Windows mobile app that initiates a Bluetooth pairing request.

Tap “Open” and follow the prompts to pair your PC and phone. You have to agree to this pairing on your iPhone and in the Phone Link app on your PC. And you should agree to any prompts that appear on your phone during this process.

Phone Link on your PC and the Link to Windows app clip on your iPhone both ask you to install the full Link to Windows app on your iPhone. Though this isn’t necessary for most cross-device integration features–only a single file-sharing feature requires the app–I assume you installed Link to Windows on your iPhone.

On your iPhone, open the Settings app and navigate to Settings > Bluetooth and locate the PC you just paired in the list under “My Devices.” Tap the “(i)” button next to that PC.

In this screen, enable the following options:

• Show Message Notifications
• Sync Contacts
• Share System Notifications

On your PC, click past any remaining welcome screens. Phone Link will restart and prompt you to let it run when you sign in to Windows 11. Click “Get started” to display the normal Phone Link interface. By default, Notifications, Messages, Calls, and audio player controls are enabled, and if you did install the Link to Windows app on your iPhone, Share files will be enabled as well.

Android

When you click “Android,” you’re presented with a QR code that you scan with your iPhone’s camera. When you do so, the Google Play Store appears so you can install the Link to Windows app. After installing the app, you run Link to Windows, sign in to your Microsoft account (MSA), and enter a code that the Phone Link app is now displaying. Then, you must allow a series of app permissions for Link to Windows on your phone so that it can:

• Send and view SMS messages
• Make and manage phone calls
• Access contacts and accounts on this device
• Access your phone call logs
• Take pictures and record video
• Access photos and videos on this device
• Send notifications
• Access this device’s location
• Let (the Link to Windows) app always run in the background
• Share optional diagnostic data (which you can safely decline)

Once you get through that bewildering series of permission prompts on your phone, you can return to Phone Link on your PC and click “Continue” in the window you used to link the phone. Phone Link will restart and prompt you to let it run when you sign in to Windows 11. Click “Get started” to display the normal Phone Link interface.

By default, Notifications, Messages, Calls, and Photos appear, and there are buttons to for Do not disturb, Volume on/off, Audio player, and Play sound above the notifications.

Customize

You customize the phone integrations in Windows 11 in two places: The Windows 11 Settings app and within Phone Link’s app settings interface.

Mobile devices

When you first configure your phone to work with Phone Link, two things happen under the covers in Windows 11, both of which are viewable (and configurable) in the Settings app:

• Your phone in paired to your PC and appears at the top of Bluetooth & devices.

• Your PC is configured to access content and capabilities from your phone and appears in Bluetooth & devices > Mobile devices.

From here, you can enable two additional features on the Mobile devices settings page that both work with iPhones and Android phones:

• Resume. Windows 11 provides a Cross-device Resume feature that lets you begin certain activities on your iPhone and continue them later on your PC. On the Mobile devices settings page, click “Resume” under “Related settings” (or navigate directly to Apps > Resume) to make sure this feature is enabled.

• Start. Start in Windows 11 can display an optional slice on its right side that helps you access some iPhone features without having to open the Phone Link app. Click “Start” under “Related settings” (or navigate directly to Personalization > Start) to make sure the “Show mobile device in Start” feature is enabled.

If you’re using an Android phone, you have other features you can view and configure by clicking your phone under “Mobile devices” on the Mobile devices settings page.

Here, you will see the following options unique to Android:

• Show mobile device in File Explorer. By default, your phone appears above This PC in the File Explorer navigation pane so you can easily browse its file system right in Windows 11 and copy files between the two devices.

• Use as a connected camera. By default, you can use your phone camera as a webcam in Windows 11.
• Remote PC controls. By default, you can remotely lock your PC using the Link to Windows app on your phone. You can only unlock the PC directly.
• Access PC’s clipboard. By default, anything you copy to the Clipboard on your PC can also be pasted into a compatible app on your phone.

Tip: If you have a recent Samsung flagship phone, you will see the feature “Cross-device copy and paste” instead of “Access PC’s clipboard” because these devices support two-way copy and paste. That is, you can also copy an item to the Clipboard on your phone and then paste it on your PC.

• Show device name in Windows Share. By default, your phone will appear as a target in the Windows Share dialog when you try to share a file. (File Explorer also supports a right-click “Send to phone” option for this sort of activity.)
• Get new photo notifications. By default, you will see a banner notification in Windows 11 each time you take a photo or screenshot on your phone. This lets you view or share the photo from Phone Link or edit it in Photos or the app of your choice.

Phone Link settings

Phone Link has a rich set of settings to examine and configure, especially if you have an Android phone.

Key settings include:

• App behavior. Look at this set of options in the General tab because Windows 11 will configure Phone Link to auto-start when you sign in to Windows 11 even if you told it not to. There are two options here, for starting Phone Link when you sign in to Windows 11 and for opening Phone Link when you sign in to Windows 11.
• Mobile devices. If you configured two or more phones to work with Phone Link, you can use this tab to switch between them.
• Features. This tab is where you configure individual options related to Phone Link features like Notifications, Messages, Calls, and more. Android phones will have several additional sets of features listed here, such as Photos, Wallpaper, Transferred files, and more. And if you have a recent Samsung flagship, you will see even more features, like Apps and Instant Hotspot.
• Start menu personalization. This tab lets you configure which individual features of the Mobile devices slice appear in Start.

Phone Link

The Phone Link app looks and works unlike any other app that ships with Windows 11, and its appearance–and utility–will vary greatly depending on what type of phone you use.

Phone Link provides the following basic interfaces regardless of phone type:

• Phone header. This display in the upper right of the app window displays the name of your phone (with a drop-down if you configure multiple phones), its Bluetooth connection status with a “Refresh” button, its battery life, and, if audio is playing on the phone, an Audio player so you can control playback of media on your phone from the PC.

• Notifications. Your most recent notifications appear in reverse chronological order in a non-resizable and non-collapsible column below the Phone header.
• Messages. This tab at the top of the app window appears by default when Phone Link runs and it displays your most recent text messages in reverse chronological order.

• Calls. This tab at the top of the app window displays your most recent phone calls in reverse chronological order.

• More options (…). The additional options you see here vary by phone. If you have an iPhone, you will see just a single option, for “Keyboard shortcuts.” Android phones display a “What’s new” entry. And recent Samsung flagships add an “Instant Hotspot” entry.

• Settings (gear). You can click this button to access the Phone Link settings interface.

Most of these interfaces are described in more detail below.

Notifications

The Notifications pane is always visible on the left side of the app, no matter which tab you’re displaying. When a new notification arrives on your phone, it appears here.

But you don’t need to be using Phone Link interactively to learn about new notifications on your phone: Windows 11 will display a banner notification by default and if Phone Link is pinned or available on the Taskbar, it will display an overlay badge representing the number of unread notifications.

Likewise, the Mobile devices slice in Start will display a badge on the Messages item.

You can do the following with individual notifications in Phone Link:

• Clear the notification. To clear the notification and remove it from the Notification pane, mouse over the notification and click the “Clear” (“X”) icon that appears. Doing so removes the notification from your phone as well.

• Mute notifications for that phone app. To mute (temporarily disable) notifications for that app, mouse over the notification, click the “More options” (“…”) button that appears, and then click “1 hour,” “8 hours,” or “1 day.”
• Pin the notification. This option pins the notification so that it appears at the top of the Notifications pane, including any new notifications. You can later unpin or clear it.

Some phone apps display other options in the “More options” context menu. For example, some apps let you “Turn off notifications” from that app entirely. Google Photos can display an “Open in browser” option so you can view the item that triggered the notification. And some phone apps display inline actions right on the notification; Gmail notifications have “Archive” and “Reply” actions, for example.

Messages

You can use Phone Link to view, send, and receive text messages on your PC, though this functionality is somewhat limited on the iPhone. Among those limitations:

• Group messaging doesn’t work, so the messages from each person in a group will arrive as if from that individual directly to you, and you can’t reply to the entire group
• Messages you send from your iPhone don’t always appear in Phone Link
• You can’t send images or videos

Those on Android, meanwhile, get the full experience.

From the Messages tab in Phone Link, you can do the following:

• Create a new message. Click the “New message” button to start a new text message. A “To” field will appear on the right so you can start typing the name of a contact (or, on Android, a group of contacts) using auto-complete. Type your message in the “Send a message” field and then click “Send” (or just tap Enter) to send it.

Tip: If you’re using an Android phone, you can also add emojis, GIFs, and images to a text message using the icons below the “Send a message” field. On iPhone, you can only add emojis.

Keyboard shortcut: You can also type Ctrl + N to create a new message.

• Read a text message. When you receive a new text message, Windows 11 displays a banner notification, the Mobile devices slice displays an overlay badge on its Messages item, the Phone Link app shortcut in the Taskbar displays a badge with a number, and the Phone Link app displays a notification in the Notifications pane. To read a text message–along with the entire conversation you’ve had with that individual or group as well as any shared media–simply select it in the Recents area in the Messages tab. (Or select either notification.)

Tip: This functionality is limited on iPhone: Previous text messages won’t appear in Phone Link until the device syncs to your PC, and even then, some messages are lost.

• Respond to a text message. To respond to a text message from your PC, select the conversation, and then click the “Send a message” field. Type your reply and tap Enter–or click the “Send” button–to send the message.

Tip: As above, this functionality is limited on the iPhone.

Tip: If you’re using an Android phone, you can also add emojis, GIFs, and images to a text message using the icons below the “Send a message” field. On iPhone, you can only add emojis.

Tip: A “Call” button also appears in the top right so you can make a call to the person you’re texting with.

Calls

You can use Phone Link to view your phone’s recent calls and to make and receive phone calls.

You can perform the following tasks from the Calls tab in Phone Link:

• View your recent calls. The Calls tab displays a list of your most recent phone calls in the center of the display. If you select one of these calls, icons for calling and texting that number will appear.

• Make a phone call. To make a phone call through your phone, but using the default microphone and speakers on your PC, use the rightmost pane in the Calls view to search for a contact or manually type in a phone number. A small “Call on PC” window will appear for the duration of the call, and when the call ends, it will be added to the top of the Recent calls list. The “Call on PC” window has buttons for transferring the call to your phone, which will switch to the phone’s microphone and speaker, “Mute,” “Keypad,” “Hold call,” and/or “End” buttons, all of which will be obvious to anyone who’s made a phone call.

• Answer a phone call. When someone else calls you, a banner notification appears in Windows 11 so you can answer the call from your PC, decline the call, or send a text message to the person calling. If you accept the call, a “Call on PC” window appears during the call with mute, keypad, hold call, and end call options.

Tip: If you decline the call, it will go to voicemail.

Tip: What you can’t do here is manage your recent calls list in any way. You can’t remove calls from the list, for example, and there are no right-click options.

Apps

If you have a recent Samsung flagship phone, you can remotely display your entire phone’s screen or an app remotely in a window on the Windows 11 Desktop as if it were an app. And if you use the Samsung Internet web browser on your phone, you can access recently viewed websites as well.

These features are available via the Apps tab in Phone Link.

There are three main features here:

• Open the phone screen as an app window. To display your phone’s screen in a resizable window click the “Open phone screen” link at the top of the Apps tab. A phone-shaped window will appear and display whatever is on your phone’s display after you step through a few permissions prompts. You can use the phone normally through this remote view window, especially if you have a multitouch screen. But you can also use the mouse to emulate touches and taps by clicking, clicking and holding for a long press, swiping, and dragging, and so on. And a “Go back” (left arrow) button in the window’s title bar can be used for the back gesture.

• Open a phone app as an app window. You can also run any app on your phone remotely in its own window in Windows 11, and you can run multiple phone apps if needed, each in its own window. This works similarly to the phone screen feature noted above, but compatible remote apps also support an “Expanded screen”/”Compact screen” toggle so you can view the app in a wider window that looks more at home on the Desktop. (This window is likewise resizable.) You can find all the apps on your phone under “All apps” in the Apps tab and recently opened apps under “Recently used.” Phone Link also lets you right-click apps here and add them to favorites, which will place each in the “Favorites” view.

• Access a recent website. If you use the Samsung Internet web browser on your phone, recently accessed websites will appear in the “Recent websites” section in the Apps tab. You can click any of these icons to display that site in your default web browser in Windows 11.

Access phone features from Start

When you use Phone Link and configure the system correctly, Start will display a Mobile devices slice on its right that lets you view phone status information, click into specific Phone Link experiences, and view recent photos, notifications, and other information.

The Mobile devices slice isn’t directly interactive, but the Messages, Calls, Photos, and Send files items (some are Android-only) are clickable and all but the latter will open the relevant Phone Link view; the “Send files” link opens the “Send do” dialog.

Likewise, the items under “Recent” will open Phone Link and navigate to the relevant view if needed.

Less obviously, there is a new “Hide mobile device”/”Show mobile device” toggle in the top right of Start, to the right of the search box, that you can use to hide of show the Mobile devices slice at any time.

Use your phone as a webcam

If you configured an Android phone with Phone Link, you can use that phone as a high-resolution webcam in Windows 11 wirelessly (or, optionally, over USB).

To do so, first unlock your phone and open Link to Windows. Then, open any Windows 11 app that supports webcams and select your Android phone as the webcam. This varies by app, but if you use the Camera app, you can click the “Change camera” in the upper-right to do so.

On your phone, Link to Windows presents a full-screen interface for switching between the front and rear cameras and enabling a Night effect that brightens the image.

But you don’t have to configure any of that on your phone: Windows 11 also displays a small utility with the same controls.

Copy and paste between your PC and your phone

If you configured an Android phone with Phone Link, you can copy text or an image on your PC and then paste it in a compatible app on your phone. And if you have a recent Samsung flagship phone, you can copy information on that phone and then paste it on your PC, too.

Tip: Image files that are larger than 1 MB in size will be resized during the transfer.

You can copy and paste:

• Text. This works as you would expect. You can copy text to the Clipboard in Windows 11 and then pick up your phone and paste it normally there. You will likely see a quick link to that text at the top of your phone’s virtual keyboard so you can paste it easily.

Tip: With a recent Samsung flagship phone, you can do this in reverse as well.

• Image. To copy an image from your phone to your PC, press and hold on the image on your phone and select “Copy image” from the context menu that appears. Then, on your PC, just use Paste with a compatible app, like Paint. You can perform this operation in reverse as well. In each case, you will see a quick pop-up notification on the phone to tell you that the Copy or Paste operation occurred on your PC.

Use your phone as an Instant Hotspot

If you have a recent Samsung flagship phone, you can access its mobile hotspot feature a bit more seamlessly using a Phone Link feature called Instant Hotspot.

To enable this feature, click the “More options” (“…”) link in Phone Link and then choose “Instant Hotspot.” Then, click “Send notification” in the “Mobile hotspot permissions” window that appears. On your phone, approve the notification that appears. When you do, Quick settings opens in Windows 11, displaying your phone’s mobile hotspot in the Wi-Fi interface.

Now, you can access your phone’s mobile hotspot in several different ways, the most convenient being:

• Quick settings. If your phone is configured for use with Phone Link, its mobile hotspot is shown at the top of the list of available Wi-Fi networks you see when you click the right side of the “Wi-Fi” quick setting button.
• Phone Link. You can connect to your phone’s mobile hotspot by clicking the “More options” (“…”) link in Phone Link and then choosing “Instant Hotspot.”

Tip: If your phone doesn’t support the Instant Hotspot feature in Phone Link, you can still configure its mobile hotspot as a Wi-Fi network as you do with any Wi-Fi network. In this case, you will need to know the hotspot’s password, of course.

Copy a file between your PC and your phone

You can copy files between your PC and phone using various methods.

Copy a file with File Explorer

If you configured an Android phone with Phone Link, an entry for that phone will appear above This PC in the File Explorer navigation pane.

You can use this link to navigate through your phone’s file system just as you would any removable storage device, and then copy files between the two devices. To be clear, this works over Wi-Fi and doesn’t require you to connect your phone to the PC over USB.

Tip: Otherwise, you can connect your Android phone to the PC over USB, manually configure the phone for this capability in the notification shade on your phone, and then access the phone’s file system that way.

Copy a file using Windows Share or Send to my phone

You can use two nearly identical Windows 11 features–Windows Share and Send to my phone–to wirelessly copy files from your PC to your phone. They both work nearly identically.

To get started, locate the file you wish to share in File Explorer. Then, do one of the following:

• Use Windows Share. Select the file, click “Share” in the app’s command bar to display the system Share dialog, and click the icon for your phone in the top area of the window.

• Use Send to my phone. Right-click the file, and click “Send to My Phone” in the context menu that appears.

In either case, a banner notification will appear while the file transfers. And on your phone, a notification appears to tell you that Link to Windows has received a file. You can tap that notification–or open Link to Windows and then tap the file in its “Received files” section–to view the file on your phone.

From there, you can share the file with other apps on your phone (and perform related actions like copying it to the phone’s clipboard) using the “Share” (magnifying glass) icon at the bottom of the screen.

You can also manage your received files from the “Received files” section on the Link to Windows app’s home page. Each received file has an associated “More options” (“…”) button from which you can select “Delete,” “Share,” and “Open folder in Files” choices.

Tip: Link to Windows saves files received from your PC in the folder On My iPhone > Link to Windows > Files from my PC on the iPhone.

Copy a file with drag and drop

If you have a recent Samsung flagship phone, you can drag and drop to copy a file from your PC to your phone or vice versa. You do so using the remote phone screen and remote app capabilities that are unique to these devices. Unfortunately, this is limited to a few select phone apps at the moment, Gallery and My Files.

To do this, open your phone screen or a compatible Android app in an app window. Then, just drag a file from File Explorer or the Desktop onto the phone or app window. Or vice versa. You will see a pop-up notification in the remote screen or app window and a banner notification in Windows 11 indicating the successful file transfer.

Resume a phone activity on your PC

Phone Link has a Resume feature that lets you continue an activity you started on your phone on your PC. This feature only supports a limited number of apps, unfortunately. On the iPhone, you can use Resume with the OneDrive mobile app. And on Android, you can also use Spotify, the vivo Browser, and WhatsApp.

Tip: Before you use this feature, you should install the Desktop version of the app on your PC. Otherwise, you will be prompted to do so when you attempt to resume an activity.

To use this feature, just open a compatible app on your phone and use it. For example, you might start playing music in the Spotify mobile app. When you do so, a Spotify icon with a “Resume from your phone” overlay badge appears in the Windows 11 Taskbar with a separator between it and your other Taskbar buttons.

To resume this activity on your PC, mouse over the Taskbar button to display a “Resume on your PC” pop-up.

Then, just click the “Continue on this PC” link to open that app on your PC and continue the activity. With Spotify, this means that it will begin playing the song, album, playlist, or other content you were enjoying on your phone.

Learn more: You can learn more about Resume on the Microsoft Support website.

View, share, and edit phone photos

In 2026, the ways in which one can access their phone-based photos in Windows 11 are changing: If you have an Android phone, you may still see a Photos view in Phone Link, but that interface is going away. So regardless of which type of phone you have, your options going forward–regardless of phone type–include the following:

• File Explorer. If you connect your phone to your PC using a USB cable and then permit this access on the device, you can browse the device’s file system (to some degree on iPhone and more fully on Android) and then copy files between the two devices. When you do so, the phone appears as a removable storage device in the File Explorer navigation pane and in the This PC view.
• Photos. The Photos app displays your Android phone-based photos in the DCIM sub-item under “This PC.” If you install the iCloud app on your PC and configure it properly. you will see all the iPhone-based photos you backed up to Apple’s cloud storage service by clicking the iCloud Photos item in Photos.

Access Phone Link in Widgets

While this is only passingly interesting, you can add a Phone Link widget to the Widgets board in Widgets. To do so, click the large “+” (“Add widgets”) button in its upper-right, select the Phone Link widget, and click “+ Add widget.”

Once on the Widgets board, you can position the Phone Link widget where you like and configure it to be a small, medium, or large size by clicking its “More options” (“…”) button.

Interactive elements include:

• Open Phone Link. Click the phone icon on the widget to open the Phone Link app.
• Refresh the connection to the phone. Click the “Connected” split button to refresh the connection to the phone over Bluetooth.
• Clear all notifications. You can click the “Clear all” link to clear all pending phone notifications.
• Clear a single notification. Click a notification’s “Clear” (“x”) button to clear only that notification.