Android Messages™ Desktop

July 12, 2026 · View on GitHub

Run Android Messages as a desktop app, a la iMessage. For those of us that prefer not to have a browser tab always open for this sort of thing.

Not affiliated with Google in any way. Android is a trademark of Google LLC.

Inspired by:

Important Note 1: We currently have builds for Windows and macOS, and Linux. I test releases on Arch Linux and to a lesser degree Windows. I would love help testing in additional places.

Important Note 2: Neither the MacOS nor the Windows binaries are signed right now. I am willing to add this but I do not have the certificates required at this time.

Install Anywhere

Download your build from the releases page.

Install on Archlinux via AUR

paru -S android-messages-desktop-bin or the relevant command in your aur helper.

Install on MacOS via Homebrew

brew install --cask orangedrangon-android-messages

Install on Windows via Scoop

scoop bucket add extras && scoop install android-messages

Portable Mode (Windows)

To run the application in portable mode:

  1. Download the Windows .zip version from the releases page and extract it to your desired location.
  2. Create an empty file named portable.txt in the same folder as the executable.
  3. Launch the app. A data folder will be automatically created to store your app data and settings in the same folder as the executable.

Contributions

The code is pretty ugly but getting better every day. Feel free to take a look.

Steps to contribute:

  1. Fork
  2. Clone
  3. Edit
  4. pnpm install for dependencies
  5. pnpm run dev to build and run assuming you have electron installed.
  6. Open a pull request when you think it is ready or for feedback during the dev process

The easiest way to get a developer environment up and running is using devenv. It is just node and yarn though so any install of those should work at the end of the day.