It is absurd that in 2025, there is no rapid and universal way independent of the platform to send text and files between a phone and a computer. You should always trust a mixture of text, email or cloud storage applications to share files and SMS on the platforms. Or I thought.
It turns out that the developers of KDE Plasma (the Linux office environment) have created an application that allows you to send files and the text of the clipboard between any device. Let me introduce you to KDE Connect and show you how you can use it.
What is KDE Connect?
KDE Connect is a small practical utility available on Linux, Windows, iOS and Android. It is open-source, free and regularly updated. I know that I mentioned that KDE Connect allows you to transparently share your clipboard (links or text) and the files between your devices, but it can do much more than that. With KDE Connect, you can display your telephone notifications on the desktop, control media reading between devices, browse your presentations with simply your phone, find your phone with a ringtone, and more.
You may think Microsoft has this phone companion application that makes similar things, but I don’t use a telephone link for two reasons: it only works with a Microsoft account, and it does not work on other platforms like Linux. I mainly use Linux and my phone to Android. If you also use Linux, KDE Connect should work perfectly.
Put things
To operate the configuration, you need KDE Connect on your phone and your PC. Let’s install the applications, then I will show you how to make it work.
If you are under Windows, you can search Kde Connect on the Microsoft store And install it with one click. KDE Connect is also available for macOS computers.
For Android, you can install the KDE Connect application from the Play Store or open source F-Droid store. Apple A app Store has kde connect Versions for iOS and iPados.
On Linux, if you run a distribution that has an integrated graphic app, first try to search. Alternatively, you can use the distribution package manager to install KDE Connect by its package name. Most of the time, “Kdeconnect” should work. For example, for Arch, try:
sudo pacman -S kdeconnect
Debian should install the application like this:
sudo apt install kdeconnect
If “kdeconnect” does not work, try “kde-connect” or “kdeconnect-plasma”.
Before being able to synchronize the KDE connection between the devices, make sure they are both connected to the same Wi-Fi.
Connect the two devices using KDE Connect. Open the application on the two devices, and it will tell you that no devices are yet paired. Here’s how to associate them.
Click on the “Pair” button to send a matching request to the KDE Connect application on your phone. Press Accept and you must instantly see the KDE Connect interface chips. The name of your computer must appear on the phone and the name of the phone must appear on the KDE Connect desktop. You can associate more devices by sliding right and pressing the “New device” button.
The phone will also receive a sticky notification which displays the device to which the phone is currently connected. If you are boring, you can open settings in the KDE Connect application and press the persistent notification to deactivate it.
How to share the text of the clipboard between your phone and your computer
Once the phone and the computer paired, the synchronization of the text is super easy.
When you try to send text from your computer to your computer to your phone, you have nothing to do because everything is automatically synchronized. As soon as you copy text to your computer, say with the shortcut CTRL + C, this text should instantly appear as a paste chip on your virtual keyboard. Alternatively, you can press and maintain a second to stick from the context menu. It’s as simple as that. Synchronization of the clipboard is updated in real time when you copy more text to the computer.
To send text from your phone to your computer, copy the text you want to send, then open the KDE Connect app on your phone and press the send the clip. You should see a toast message that KDE Connect has just sent this text to your computer. Then stick the text on your computer with the shortcut.
How to share files between your phone and computer
There are two ways to send files on your phone to your PC with KDE Connect. Select the target file or files, press the Share button and choose KDE Connect from the Android Share menu. If you are on Linux, the files will appear in your download folder.
Alternatively, open the KDE Connect app on the phone and press the Send files button. It should open the file manager where you can search and find files and folders you are trying to send. Just press select and the files will be instantly pushed to the download folder.
For any reason, you cannot send several PC files to the phone with KDE Connect, but you can send them one by one. Click Share the file on the PC application and choose a file to send. On the phone, you will see a notification ping that it has just received a file.
KDE Connect also offers a lot of other features such as presenter mode, remote control for the cursor, keyboard and multimedia reading. Now you no longer have to send you a file by e-mail just to have it on another device or send you an SMS just to copy the data from the clipboard.
