SMS Forwarder
Automatically forward the text messages your Android phone receives to your Telegram. Leave a phone plugged in at home and get your verification codes and alerts wherever you are.
Requires Android 8.0 (API 26) or later · Free · For personal use
Self-hosted — you run the companion backend
You run the backend. Your messages stay yours.
SMS Forwarder is a thin client: it never talks to Telegram directly and stores no channel tokens. It uploads each SMS to your own self-hosted server, which relays it and then forgets it — message bodies are not retained.
How SMS Forwarder works, end to end →What SMS Forwarder does
Real-time capture
Catches every incoming SMS via a broadcast receiver plus a foreground-service inbox poll — so nothing is missed, even on Huawei / HarmonyOS where background limits break naive SMS apps.
Forwards to Telegram
Relays each SMS to your Telegram through a shared bot. Binding is one tap — open the bot, press Start; there are no tokens to copy.
Self-hosted backend
You run the small companion server. Channel routing lives there, so adding or changing channels never requires rebuilding the app.
Reliable, no duplicates
Uploads retry until they succeed and survive reboots; a monotonic message cursor and a server-side idempotency key mean nothing is lost or delivered twice.
Runs for months unattended
A persistent foreground service, auto-restart on boot, battery-optimization exemption, an OEM auto-start guide, and an optional silent-audio keep-alive keep it alive on a plugged-in phone.
Private & bilingual
Sign in once and the device stays signed in via a revocable token. Relay-and-forget: bodies aren't stored on the server. English and 中文 with an in-app language switch.
Screenshots
How it works
Sign in
Create an account in the app and sign in once; the device stays authenticated with a long-lived, revocable token.
Bind Telegram
Tap Bind, open the bot, and press Start. Your Telegram chat is linked to your account — no tokens to copy.
Start the service
Grant SMS + notification permissions and tap Start. The app now watches for every incoming SMS.
Receive anywhere
Each new SMS is uploaded to your backend and pushed to your Telegram within seconds — wherever you are.
Relay-and-forget, self-hosted
There is no cloud service of ours in the loop — you run the backend yourself. It holds each message only until it is delivered, then deletes it, keeping just a metadata log for you as the operator. Sign-in uses a per-device token you can revoke at any time.
When to use SMS Forwarder
Receive verification / 2FA codes while away — leave the phone with your SIM plugged in at home and get every code in Telegram wherever you are.
Keep an old number alive — a second or retired phone forwards its SMS to your main device without carrying it around.
Travelling or abroad — read SMS sent to a home-country SIM without roaming, straight in Telegram.
Bank, carrier and delivery alerts — funnel transactional SMS to a Telegram chat you actually watch.
Works on aggressive ROMs — a plugged-in Huawei / Xiaomi / OPPO device keeps forwarding even where background limits kill naive SMS apps.
SMS Forwarder vs. other ways to get your texts remotely
| SMS Forwarder | Carrier SMS forwarding | Cloud SMS-forward apps | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted — you run the server | ✓ | — (carrier) | — (their cloud) |
| Message bodies not retained (relay-and-forget) | ✓ | n/a | often stored |
| No channel tokens stored in the app | ✓ | n/a | varies |
| Delivers to Telegram | ✓ | — (only another number) | ✓ |
| Survives aggressive Chinese ROMs | ✓ broadcast + poll | n/a | often killed |
| Works without carrier support / extra fees | ✓ | — (may cost per SMS) | ✓ |
| Free | ✓ personal use | varies | freemium |
Frequently asked questions
What is SMS Forwarder?
SMS Forwarder is a free Android app that captures the text messages your phone receives and forwards them to your Telegram. It is a thin client: it uploads each SMS to a small self-hosted backend, which relays it to your channel and then deletes the body. It is built for a phone left plugged in at home so your SMS — verification codes, bank and carrier alerts — reach you anywhere. Requires Android 8.0 (API 26) or later.
Do I need my own server?
SMS Forwarder needs a backend to relay messages. You can self-host the companion server (a single Go binary + SQLite, no external services) or connect to a shared instance. Self-hosting means the entire path — capture, upload, and delivery to Telegram — is under your control, and message bodies are never retained after delivery.
Which channels can it forward to?
Telegram, via a shared bot. Because channel routing lives on the backend rather than in the app, more channels can be added server-side without rebuilding or reinstalling the app. Binding your Telegram is one tap — open the bot and press Start; there are no tokens to copy on the phone.
Does it work on Huawei / Xiaomi / HarmonyOS?
Yes — that is a core design goal. On aggressive Chinese ROMs the system often withholds SMS broadcasts from third-party apps or freezes background work, which breaks naive forwarders. SMS Forwarder captures with both a broadcast receiver and a foreground-service poll of the SMS inbox (using a monotonic id cursor), and uploads directly from the live service rather than via background schedulers the OS throttles. Add it to the auto-start whitelist and battery-optimization exemption for best results.
Are my SMS private? Are they stored anywhere?
The app reads incoming SMS only to forward them; it uploads nothing else. On the backend it is relay-and-forget: a message body lives only until it is delivered, then it is deleted, leaving just a metadata log (result, time, sender) for the operator. There are no ads, no analytics, and no tracking SDKs. If you self-host, no third party is ever in the loop.
Will it drain the battery?
It is meant for a phone kept plugged in, so power is a non-issue in the intended setup. The foreground service polls the SMS inbox on a short, configurable interval (a cheap local database read) and uploads only when a new message arrives. There is an optional silent-audio keep-alive for extra resistance to being killed on aggressive ROMs; leave it off if you prefer.
Is it free? Where do I get it?
SMS Forwarder is free, for personal use — no ads, no in-app purchases. You download the APK from GitHub (Actions artifacts or Releases) and install it directly; on Huawei you may need to disable Pure Mode first. The client and the backend server are separate open repositories.
How is it different from carrier SMS forwarding or a cloud app?
Carrier forwarding (if offered) only re-sends to another phone number and may cost per message; a cloud SMS-forward app routes your texts through someone else's server and often stores them. SMS Forwarder is self-hosted and relay-and-forget: it delivers straight to Telegram, keeps no message bodies after delivery, holds no channel tokens in the app, and is engineered to keep running on aggressive Android ROMs.
Get your SMS wherever you are
Download the SMS Forwarder APK, pair it with your backend, and start forwarding.
Download APK