ResenderReceive SMS from your home SIM while abroad
Leave the SIM in an Android phone at home, plugged in and on Wi-Fi, with Resender on it. Every SMS that number receives — from family, from the dentist, from the delivery company, from anyone — is in your email seconds later, wherever in the world you read it.
Before you leave
- Pick the phone that stays home. Any Android phone from Android 8 up with your home SIM in it, on a charger and on Wi-Fi. If you travel with your everyday phone, an old one from a drawer does the job.
- Install Resender and sign in to your mailbox — Google or Microsoft in one tap, or any mailbox with an app password. Your address is the first recipient.
- Leave Forward everything on, or add rules if only some senders should follow you.
- Make Android let it run — battery optimisation off, and the manufacturer's switches from the battery guides on a Xiaomi, Samsung, Huawei or similar phone. Then send the number a test SMS and watch it arrive.
While you are away
Nothing to do. The emails arrive from your own address, with the sender in the subject, and you read them on whatever you have with you — a laptop, a tablet, a phone with a local SIM. The phone at home does not need a data plan, and you never pay roaming for a message you receive by email.
What to know
- The phone at home must stay on and connected. If the Wi-Fi drops, Resender retries for 24 hours; if the phone is off, the carrier holds the SMS until it is back.
- Calls are not forwarded — only SMS, and only to email. Set up call forwarding with your carrier if you need it.
- Chat messages (RCS) are not SMS and are not forwarded.
- Free forwards 3 SMS a day with every feature; Pro has no daily limit, and the first 7 days are Pro at no charge — enough to see whether the setup works before a long trip.
Questions
Why not just take the SIM with me?
You can — but roaming SMS cost money on some plans, a local SIM for data often has to take the slot, and a phone that is lost abroad takes the number with it. A SIM at home keeps receiving regardless of where you are.
Does the phone at home need mobile data?
No. It receives SMS over the carrier network, which costs nothing, and sends the emails over the home Wi-Fi.
How quickly do the emails arrive?
Within seconds of the SMS, as long as the phone at home is on, connected and allowed to run in the background. If its connection drops, Resender retries for 24 hours.
Can my partner at home get the messages too?
Yes. Add their address as a second recipient; each rule sends to all recipients, to the ones you select, or to none. Senders that should reach only you get a rule with you as the only recipient.
I am travelling with the phone itself and keep the SIM in it. Does Resender still help?
Yes: it forwards whatever that phone receives, so the SMS are also in your email — searchable, readable on a laptop, kept even if the phone is lost. Roaming charges are the carrier's, not the app's.