It’s absurd that in the year 2025, there isn’t a quick and universal platform-independent way to send text and files between a phone and a computer. You always have to rely on some mix of texting apps, email, or cloud storage to share files and text across platforms. Or so I thought.
Turns out, the developers of KDE Plasma (the Linux desktop environment) have made an app that lets you seamlessly send files and clipboard text back and forth 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 handy little utility available on Linux, Windows, iOS, and Android. It’s open-source, free, and regularly updated. I know I mentioned that KDE Connect lets you seamlessly share your clipboard (links or text) and files between your devices, but it can do a lot more than just that. With KDE Connect, you can view your phone notifications on the desktop, control media playback between devices, flip through your presentations with just your phone, find your phone with a ringer, and more.
You might be thinking that Microsoft has that phone companion app that does similar things, but I don’t use Phone Link because of two reasons: it only works with a Microsoft account, and it doesn’t work on other platforms like Linux. I mostly use Linux, and my phone has Android. If you use Linux too, KDE Connect should work perfectly.
Set Things Up
To make the setup work, you need KDE Connect on your phone and on your PC. Let’s install the apps, and then I’ll show you how to make it work.
If you’re on Windows, you can search for 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 app from the Play Store or from the open source F-Droid store. Apple’s App Store has the KDE Connect versions for iOS and iPadOS.
On Linux, if you’re running a distro that has a built-in graphical app store, try searching there first. Alternatively, you can use the distro’s 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 app like this:
sudo apt install kdeconnect
If “kdeconnect” doesn’t work, try “kde-connect” or “kdeconnect-plasma.”
Before you can sync the KDE Connect between devices, make sure they’re both connected to the same Wi-Fi.
Let’s connect the two devices using KDE Connect. Open the app on both devices, and it’ll tell you no devices are paired yet. Here’s how to pair them.
Click the “Pair” button to send a pairing request to your phone’s KDE Connect app. Tap accept, and you should instantly see the KDE Connect interface chips. Your computer’s name should appear on the phone and the phone’s name should appear on the KDE Connect desktop. You can pair more devices by swiping right and tapping the “Pair New Device” button.
The phone will also get a sticky notification that displays the device the phone is currently connected to. If that’s annoying to you, you can open settings in the KDE Connect app and tap Persistent Notification to disable it.
Once the phone and computer are paired, syncing text across is super easy.
When trying to send clipboard text from your computer to your phone, you don’t need to do anything because it’s all automatically synced. As soon as you copy text on your computer, say with the Ctrl + C shortcut, that text should instantly appear as a paste chip on your virtual keyboard. Alternatively, you can tap and hold for a second to paste from the context menu. It’s that simple. The clipboard sync updates in real time as you copy more text on the computer.
To send text from your phone to your computer, copy the text you want to send over, then open the KDE Connect app on your phone, and tap the Send Clipboard button. You should see a toast message that KDE Connect just sent that text to your computer. Then just paste the text on your computer with the shortcut.
There are two ways you can send files from your phone to your PC with KDE Connect. Select the target file or files, tap the share button, and choose KDE Connect from the Android share menu. If you’re on Linux, the files will show up in your downloads folder.
Alternatively, open the KDE Connect app on the phone and tap the Send Files button. It should open the file manager where you can search and find files and folders you’re trying to send. Just tap select and the files will instantly be pushed to the downloads folder.
For some reason, you can’t send multiple files from PC to phone with KDE Connect, but you can send them one by one. Click Share File on the PC app and pick a file to send. On the phone, you will see a notification ping that it just received a file.
KDE Connect also offers a bunch of other features like presenter mode, remote control for the cursor, keyboard, and media playback. Now you never have to email yourself a file just to have it on another device or send yourself a text just to copy the clipboard data.
