KDE Connect

KDE Connect is the phone half of a pair: an Android app from the KDE community that talks to a companion program on your computer. In the README’s words, it works “without wires, over the already existing Wi-Fi network, and using TLS encryption”, and “you will also need to install the desktop app for it to work.” It is free, has no paid version and, on Google Play, more than a million downloads.

What it does

Each feature is a plugin, which you can switch off for each paired device:

• Shared clipboard in both directions (on Android 10 and later, sending from the phone needs a tap; see the questions below).
• Notifications on the computer: read the phone’s notifications there and reply to messages.
• Share files and links from the phone to the computer and back.
• Media controls: use the phone as a remote for music and video playing on the computer.
• Remote input: the phone as a touchpad and keyboard for the computer, and a presentation remote for slides.
• Run commands that you set up on the computer, from the phone.
• Find my phone: make the phone ring from the computer, optionally flashing the torch too.
• Filesystem access: browse the phone’s storage from the computer’s file manager.
• Text messages from the computer, with KDE Connect’s SMS app on the desktop, plus call notifications and an optional contacts sync, which asks separately before sending your contacts.
• The other way round, the computer can also control the phone’s pointer and keyboard (Android 7 and later; see the permissions below).

What your computer needs

KDE’s download page lists KDE Connect for Linux, where it “works on all desktop environments”, for Windows (Microsoft Store, Chocolatey or an installer) and for macOS (a download or Homebrew). On GNOME you can use GSConnect or Valent instead, which speak the same protocol. The app’s own description asks you to “keep the desktop version up-to-date with the Android version for the latest features to work.”

Keep the computer side updated for security, too. In November 2025 KDE published a flaw, CVE-2025-66270, that let an attacker who knew the ID of a paired device impersonate it and skip authentication. It affected KDE Connect desktop 25.04 to 25.11, GSConnect 59 to 67, and the Android app from 1.33.0 to 1.34.3; the Android version here is well past it.

How the connection works

From the 1.37.0 source code:

• Discovery: the phone announces itself on the local network with a UDP broadcast on port 1716 and over mDNS. The computers then connect over TCP, on a port between 1716 and 1764.
• Encryption: every device makes its own key and self-signed certificate; connections use TLS 1.2. After pairing, each side accepts only the certificate it saw when you paired.
• Pairing: both screens show the same 8-character code. The two clocks have to be within 30 minutes of each other, or pairing fails with “Device clocks are out of sync”. Since 1.35.17, a pairing can only be accepted when one has actually been requested.
• Trusted networks: by default, every network counts as trusted, so the phone announces its name and device ID on any Wi-Fi it joins, public networks included. You can limit this to networks you pick; to read the Wi-Fi name for that, Android requires the location permission.
• Bluetooth as a link is off by default on Android, and labelled “beta”.

What goes online

Files, notifications and everything else go directly between your devices over the local network. The app’s description says KDE Connect “never sends any information to KDE nor to any third party” and works “never through the internet”, but the code has two small exceptions:

• On first launch, if you haven’t named the device yet, it downloads Google’s public list of phone models (supported_devices.csv from Google’s storage servers) to show a readable name for your phone. The list is matched on the phone; nothing about your phone is sent, though the server sees an ordinary download request.
• When the computer reports album art for the music it’s playing as a web address, the phone downloads that image, only on Wi-Fi or other unmetered networks.

We found no analytics, crash reporting or update checks.

Permissions

The APK lists many permissions because each plugin needs different ones, but a plugin that lacks its permission simply stays inactive until you grant it from the plugin list:

• Notification access for notification sync and the media controls.
• Accessibility service only for letting the computer control the phone’s pointer and keyboard. Version 1.35.16 added a keyboard receiver that uses it, so you no longer have to switch to KDE Connect’s own keyboard.
• All files access for browsing the phone from the computer.
• SMS, phone and contacts for the messaging, call and contacts plugins.
• Location, including in the background, only for reading the Wi-Fi name for trusted networks.
• Camera for the optional torch in Find my phone, and the microphone for voice input in the remote for Plasma Bigscreen, KDE’s TV interface.
• Reading system logs and drawing over other apps are listed for the automatic clipboard workaround; reading logs can only be granted over adb, and KDE’s instructions grant both that way.

About this file

• This is F-Droid’s build of KDE Connect 1.37.0, signed with F-Droid’s key. Google Play has the same app from “KDE Community”, built from the same source but signed by KDE, so you can’t update one with the other: switching means uninstalling, and, since the app keeps its data out of Android’s backups, pairing your computers again.
• Upstream’s 1.37.0 changelog says no new feature was added and asks users to report regressions after extensive internal changes. The source changes include safer file-transfer cancellation and cleanup, a new remote-keyboard input path on Android 14 and later, fixes for one-to-one RCS address handling and stale media-player state, and support for cancelling a transfer over Bluetooth. The 1.36.0 features—horizontal scrolling in remote input, faster received files, remote-filesystem reconnection and presentation-remote haptics—remain present.
• The 7.4 MB file runs on ARM and x86 phones and needs Android 6.0 or later. Our scan found no trackers.
• The screenshots are the project’s own, from 2023; some labels have changed since (the slideshow remote is now called “Presentation remote”).
• KDE Connect is licensed under the GPL (version 2 or 3). KDE® is a registered trademark of KDE e.V.; this site isn’t affiliated with KDE.

CPU types in this build: arm64-v8a (64-bit ARM, almost every phone since 2017); armeabi-v7a (32-bit ARM, older and budget phones); x86 (32-bit Intel, emulators); x86_64 (64-bit Intel, emulators and Chromebooks).

Versions currently kept in the F-Droid repository. We host and check only the newest one.