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KDE Connect

I've mentioned KDE Connect before, and recent developments mean it's becoming one of KDE's best features. KDE Connect is an applet and background service for your desktop, but it's also an open source app for your Android phone. Installed either via Google Play or F-Droid, the Android app connects to your desktop whenever both your computer and phone are connected to the same network, although you do need to accept a PIN first for authentication. After both devices are connected, which happens automatically and transparently after the first synchronization, you can now see lots of information from your phone and perform lots of new actions. Things you can see include battery status, any notifications from your phone (enabled separately), and the phone's filesystem. You can transfer files, send and receive files in either direction, and make your phone ring if you need to find it. You can use your phone as both a keyboard and a touchpad, which is an excellent option for presentations or remote control, and you can share the "copy and paste" clipboard with either device or PC, which is great for URLs and passwords. You can even run commands remotely, which is good for shutting down your PC from the kitchen.

New in the latest release, you can also reply to SMS notifications from your desktop. This feels like the modern age of integrated devices, and it's genuinely useful. It means you can keep your phone plugged in somewhere and still send messages and access its core features. To get this feature to work, I needed to delete all our old configuration files in the ~/.config/kdeconnect directory and re-sync devices, but this could have been because I'd iterated over many old versions during development. After a restart, KDE Connect is faultless and highly recommended.

Project Website

https://community.kde.org/KDEConnect

KDE is now synergizing with your phone by letting you send SMS messages from your desktop.

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