A new Android update is going to make Microsoft’s Phone Link a little worse

I don’t know about you, but I love getting SMS notifications mirrored on my PC. They’re the most useful when I’m receiving a two-factor authentication (2FA) code on my phone for an action I want to do on my PC. No more flailing around to find my phone; I just need to keep my eye on my PC notifications, and the code pops up there instead.

If you use Microsoft’s built-in Phone Link feature to achieve the same goal, you’re going to be a little disappointed very soon. It seems that an update to Android is blocking apps from accessing sensitive SMS messages, including 2FA codes. And yes, that means Phone Link can’t see them anymore.

Windows Phone Link can no longer show SMS messages containing sensitive information

As spotted by Windows Central, people who use Phone Link are spotting the following message when using the application:

“With the latest Android updates, Phone Link no longer shows notifications that contain sensitive information for your protection.”

Fortunately, it’s not all bad news. In a post on X, Mishaal Rahman broke down what was going on and noticed that phones that came with the “Link to Windows” app pre-installed could overcome this issue, which usually includes Samsung phones. However, if someone downloaded the “Link to Windows” app off the Google Play store, they were out of luck.

While blocking malicious apps and malware from reading sensitive SMS details is a great idea, it does seem a shame that we have to sacrifice helpful functionality for it. Hopefully Microsoft and Android can work something out to allow Phone Link to read people’s sensitive SMS messages.