How To Get Your Android Phone’s Notifications On Your Desktop With Android Notifier

Our Android phones are capable of more and more every day, and all of those apps generate a lot of notifications. Some of those notifications are ones that you would like to see, even if you don’t have your phone right next to you while you’re working on a computer. However, there is a relatively new service that has parts for the phone itself and for your Windows/Mac/Linux desktop. This pair can detect the notifications on your phone, and show them on your computer desktop.

About Android Notifier

Android Notifier is the app that gets it done. The general idea is simple: have a part of the app on the phone, listening for notifications and sending them out according to its configuration. The part on the desktop then receives these notifications and displays them for you, as shown below.

That’s all there is to it. However, you have a handful more options than just the simple idea.

Installation

To start things off, go ahead and download the app from the Android Market, or just follow the link to their site and read the QR barcode. Now go to the site if you haven’t already and download the corresponding setup file for your system. There are files available for easy installation in Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE. Note that these packages do not come in the default repositories for your system if you use Linux.

Configuration

Configuration takes a little while because you have to configure both the part on your phone and the part that is on your desktop. However, for both, the process is very self-explanatory.
If you choose to send the notifications via your WiFi (or even over the Internet if you have a static IP address and the correct port forwarding), you can choose whether to broadcast the notification over the entire network so that configured clients will be able to pick it up and display it (this won’t work over the Internet), or whether you want to target specific IP addresses (this needs to be set if sending over the Internet). You can also choose to send the notifications via Bluetooth if distance is not an issue. You’ll just need to have the phone and computer paired as a prerequisite, and you’ll be able to choose which device to send the notifications to.
Finally, you can also set a passphrase for your notifications, so only when both the phone and client have the correct passphrase entered will notifications appear. Make sure that similar settings are entered into the desktop client. Note that you can collapse certain categories of settings when you don’t need them. To test your settings, just send out a test notification.
Another handy feature is the availability to execute commands for your computer each time a certain even occurs.

Aside from the notifications that appear in the notification bar on your phone, Android Notifier can also periodically notify you of the battery level of your phone. This is a great feature because it’ll be one less thing to worry about where you have to constantly check your phone.

Conclusion

Using Android Notifier is a great advantage for those who wish that they did not have to constantly check their phones while working on the computer. If you have an Android phone, I highly suggest that you try it out!
Do you find Android Notifier a great convenience and plan on using it, or just more pop-ups in a sea of other notifications? Let us know in the comments!