Texts: read and sent from your computer¶

Your phone's texts can be read on your computer, and a text written there can be sent by your phone. Sioul does not become your phone's SMS app: your messages app stays the record of your texts, and keeps working as before. Your computers keep all of them, sealed, as an archive that only grows.

Setting it up¶

On the phone, Settings ▸ This phone ▸ Texts says what each permission is for: reading your texts, hearing a new one, sending the texts you write on a computer, and your SIMs' names. Allow in Android… asks for them. When Android has not given them after you asked (Sioul installed from a file: from Android 15, they wait behind restricted settings), the tab says the steps in their order: Allow in Android… once more, then ⋮ ▸ Allow restricted settings in Sioul's app info, then Allow in Android… again; and gives its button.
Turn on the part Texts, on the phone and on each computer that should read or write texts (Settings ▸ Your folder and sharing ▸ What travels from this device). It is off until you do; a phone that has just joined your sharing says so, with the part's switch.
Then the history follows by itself, the newest first, 500 texts at a time, the pictures and other media after their texts, so that your doses, do-not-disturb and calls never wait behind it. It goes while your phone charges: a long history can weigh hundreds of megabytes. A text that comes meanwhile goes within a minute or two, on the battery too, as every new text and multimedia message does after the history. A history put back on a phone at once, by a backup app, goes the same way. On the phone, Settings ▸ This phone ▸ Texts says how many texts and how much media it holds, then how much has gone. On a computer, the part's line in the sharing panel says how many it keeps.

What you see¶

Texts is a page of its own, under Mail in the places on the left, laid out as Mail is.

On the left, the conversations, newest first, with people by your address books' names, their last words, and when; "A draft by an AI agent waits here." where one does. The search over them looks through every text's words, and through names and numbers.
On the right, the conversation you open, as a thread: the whole history in time order, each day said once, your texts on the right and theirs on the left. A text that comes shows at once, without leaving the page; what you were typing, and where you were reading, stay.
Multimedia messages: a picture shows in its message; a sound, a video, a contact card or another file says its kind and size, with Open and Save…. A file over the size chosen on the phone (10 MB unless you choose another) stays there, and the page says so; carriers keep multimedia messages small, so nearly all come.
A text deleted on your phone stays here, said so quietly.
Writing, under the thread: an AI agent's drafts first, if one left some (Use it puts their words in the box; sending stays yours), then the box. The page says how many texts yours will take. Accents and signs outside the texts' own alphabet leave fewer characters per text. Attach, under Send, adds pictures and files (below).
The keyboard: Up and Down move in the list and Enter opens a conversation; Escape closes it.
In a narrow window, as in Mail: the list, then the conversation, and Back.
What became of a text you sent, in words: waiting for your phone (and when it last shared), sending, sent at, delivered at (only when your carrier says so), not sent and why, expired, or "Your phone may not have sent it", when Sioul cannot know. Send again makes a new text; nothing is ever sent again by itself.
Not shown: drafts and texts that failed or wait to leave. Android shows them to your messages app alone. A multimedia message your phone has not downloaded says so.

Each text once¶

A text written on a computer waits in your sharing until your phone takes it. The phone writes it down in a private ledger before it hands it to Android, so it is never sent twice, whatever happens to the sharing. A text that waited more than 15 minutes for the phone is not sent: the page says so, and you choose whether to send it again. Android retries by itself when the network fails; Sioul does not.

Not sent from a computer: short numbers, which can cost money; a text to several people at once, which is a multimedia message. Send those from your phone.

Pictures and files¶

Attach, under Send, or files dropped on the page: pictures, videos, sounds and contact cards go with your words as one multimedia message, which your phone sends. Attach shows once your phone has said what its carrier takes: its Sioul up to date, after its next share.
Made fit on your computer, before anything leaves it. A picture is always written again as a JPEG, at most 1,600 pixels on its long side, its quality lowered, then its size, until it fits; it keeps no detail of where, with what or when it was taken (Private). PNG, WebP, TIFF, BMP and still GIF pictures become JPEGs too; a HEIC where your computer can read it (Linux with KDE's image formats, macOS), else it is refused: send it from your phone. An animated GIF keeps its frames alone, its comments and other programs' notes left out. A video, a sound or a card goes as it is when it fits, with whatever its file holds (a video may hold where it was filmed), else it is refused in words: nothing is converted. Sioul tells each by what it holds, never by its name: other files, a PDF say, even one renamed as a video, are refused: send them by mail.
Five at most a message, sharing its size: the pictures share what the others leave.
What you see: each one as it will go, a picture as it was made, with its size; why any did not go; and under Send, "One multimedia message (412 kB of 600 kB)".
How large: Settings ▸ Texts, on each computer: up to your carrier's limit (600 kB with French carriers), or 300 kB, for older phones and some networks abroad. Your phone shows its carrier's values in Settings ▸ This phone ▸ Texts.
Sent only when Android and your carrier both said so. Your phone needs mobile data for it: when it is off, the page says so. Android may keep trying for an hour and a half on a network that comes and goes; past 40 minutes the page says until when. When the network failed at each of its tries, perhaps after your carrier took the message, the page says it may have gone, and offers no Send again: ask whether it came. Never "Delivered" for a multimedia message: Sioul asks your carrier for no report. Your plan decides what a multimedia message costs, abroad especially.

Private¶

Your texts and their media travel through your own sharing folder, sealed with your passphrase, and are sealed again on each computer that keeps them, with a key only your devices hold. The folder's server sees which device wrote and when, never what, nor how long each text is. To show a picture or open a file, the page writes a copy for you alone, and deletes it when the page closes. A picture you attach is written again on your computer before anything leaves it, from its pixels alone: no place, no camera, no time, no comment goes with it, and its file's name never does; a video, a sound or a card goes as it is, with whatever its file holds (what a sent picture keeps and loses). Turn the part off on a computer, and nothing more comes to it.

An archive¶

Your computers keep every text and everything a later restore onto a new phone would need: each text as your phone's messages keep it, and each medium. That restore is not built yet; for now the archive serves reading and writing on your computers.

Where to find it¶

In the places on the left, under Mail.
On the Porch, a text's Reply sends one of these texts, and Open on the Texts page, in its menu, opens its conversation here (Text back, where no Reply is offered).
On a person's sheet, Texts with them….

Not there yet¶

Answering a chat app's message from the computer.

For technical readers¶

How it is built, with every rule that keeps a text from being sent twice: Texts. The research behind it: Texts and notifications on the computer.