Connecting your channels

Channels connect in two different ways, and the difference matters more than the setup steps. Here is what each one actually does, what it cannot do, and what to check when messages stop arriving.

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Two kinds of channel. SMS and Telegram connect to the service itself: Textly signs in with your account and has your full history. WhatsApp, Discord and Slack do not. None of the three offers any way for another app to read your messages, so Textly reads their Android notifications instead.

That is a genuinely different thing, and it has consequences worth knowing before you rely on it:

No history. Nothing that arrived before you connected exists for Textly, and it never will. The archive stays in the original app.
Notifications must be switched on for that app, including for the individual chat. A muted conversation never reaches Textly at all.
Message previews must be visible. If the app is set to hide content, its notification says 3 new messages instead of the text, and there is nothing to show you.
Replies need a live notification. Once it is dismissed, or once you read the chat in the original app, that route closes and you reply in the original app.
Time offline is lost. A message that arrives while your phone is off cannot be fetched later.

Do Not Disturb is fine. Notifications are still delivered, just silently, and Textly still sees them. And nothing leaves your phone: Textly never contacts WhatsApp, Discord or Slack, it only reads what is already on your unlocked screen.

WhatsApp Read from notifications

There is no WhatsApp account to connect. WhatsApp offers no interface for other apps, and tools that imitate the official client risk getting your number banned. We are not willing to put your account at that risk, so Textly reads WhatsApp's notifications instead.

In Textly, open Channels → WhatsApp → Connect
Grant notification access when Android asks. This is a system screen, and Textly cannot grant it for you
Make sure WhatsApp notifications are on, including for the chats you care about
New messages appear as they arrive. Earlier ones do not

Your messages stay end-to-end encrypted. WhatsApp decrypts them on your phone as it always has; Textly reads the result on your device and never talks to WhatsApp's servers.

To disconnect: choose Disconnect in Textly, which wipes the cached messages. There is nothing to revoke inside WhatsApp, because nothing was ever linked.

SMS & MMS Android only

On iPhone this is not possible. Apple provides no interface for a third-party app to read or send text messages, so your texts stay in Apple's Messages app. Nothing on the App Store can change that.

On Android, SMS needs no connection; it needs the default-app role. Android allows exactly one app at a time to send and receive text messages.

Textly asks on first launch; confirming is enough
Manually: Settings → Apps → Default apps → SMS app → Textly
Your entire SMS history appears immediately, with nothing imported or copied

Switching back to another SMS app later changes nothing about your messages: they live in Android's message storage, not inside Textly.

Full platform comparison

Telegram Full client

Telegram is the one connected channel that works the way you would expect: Textly signs in through Telegram's own login, exactly as any new Telegram client does, and your existing chats and their history come with it.

Settings → Channels → Telegram
Enter your number and the code Telegram sends you
If you use two-step verification, enter your Telegram password
Your chats and their history appear in the unified inbox

Textly shows up in Telegram under Settings → Devices, where you can end the session at any time.

Discord Read from notifications

Discord's API has no permission that grants another app access to your messages. Its authorisation screen can hand over your profile and your server list, but never the conversations, so there is nothing useful to authorise. Textly reads Discord's notifications instead.

Channels → Discord → Connect
Grant notification access when Android asks
New messages appear as they arrive. Earlier ones do not

Busy servers are worth muting in Discord itself. Textly has no separate channel picker: what Discord notifies you about is what arrives, so Discord's own notification settings are the filter.

To disconnect: choose Disconnect in Textly. Nothing appears under Authorized Apps in Discord, because nothing was ever authorised.

Slack Read from notifications

Slack does have a proper API, but using it would mean running a server: its sign-in exchange needs a secret an app on your phone cannot keep, and receiving messages in real time needs an address on the public internet. Textly has no server and we would rather keep it that way, so Slack is read from its notifications like the other two.

Channels → Slack → Connect
Grant notification access when Android asks
Every workspace signed in on your phone is covered at once, with no separate step

One upside: workspace admins often block third-party apps, and that restriction does not apply here. Nothing is installed into your workspace, so there is nothing for an admin to approve or refuse.

To disconnect: choose Disconnect in Textly.

Not supported

iMessage has no client interface outside Apple's own devices. Signal deliberately prevents third-party access, which is precisely the point of Signal.

We would rather name these plainly than let you discover the gap after installing.

When something breaks

Troubleshooting

Nothing arrives from WhatsApp, Discord or Slack

Almost always one broken link in the same chain: the app has to raise a notification, and Textly has to be allowed to see it.

Check notification access first. Android revokes it after an app update or a restore, and silently. Open Channels in Textly, which tells you whether the permission is currently granted.
Check the app's own notification settings. No notification means no message, with no way around it.
Check whether that specific chat is muted. Muting is per conversation, so one silenced group vanishes from Textly while everything else keeps working. This is the most common cause of "one chat is missing".
Check whether previews are hidden. If the app is set to hide message content, its notification carries a count instead of the text, and there is nothing to read.
Battery optimisation. Aggressive background limits on Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus can kill the listener. Exclude Textly.

Telegram or SMS stopped syncing

Telegram: a session can be ended from another device. Open Channels and reconnect.
SMS: another app may have taken the default-app role. Check Settings → Apps → Default apps → SMS app.
Exclude Textly from battery optimisation on both.

Messages arrive late

For Telegram, background sync is the usual cause: exclude Textly from battery optimisation, and note that data-saver mode can hold sync until you open the app. For the notification channels, Textly is as fast as your notification shade, because that is the same event.

An older message never showed up

For WhatsApp, Discord and Slack this is expected rather than a fault. Textly only ever sees what is announced while it is running, so anything from before you connected, or from a stretch when your phone was off, is not missing but unreachable. It is still in the original app.

Disconnecting a channel

Open Channels, select the service and choose Disconnect. This deletes the cached messages and the derived data for that channel from your device, along with the stored login for Telegram. Nothing on the service itself changes. For Telegram you can also end the session under Settings → Devices; for WhatsApp, Discord and Slack there is nothing to revoke, because nothing was ever connected.

Five channels. One list.

Install Textly, set it as your default SMS app, and link whichever channels you use.

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