Phone Link suddenly not showing my side of the conversation, but it shows images I send

Question

Phone Link suddenly not showing my side of the conversation, but it shows images I send

Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures 5

I love Phone Link on my Win 11 Desktop when I'm home instead of using my phone for texting. It's connected to my Galaxy S26 Android through Link to Windows. But all of a sudden, it's not showing what I text I send from my phone....just the other person's responses. Oddly, if I send a photo from my phone, THAT does show up on Phone link.

I tried getting some support from ChatGPT and it suggested a test by going onto my phone and turning on an option that said "Only send SMS and MMS messages". When I did this, the texts started reflecting in Phone Link again. And turning it off again stopped that. But I don't want that option on because I'd lose many of the benefits of the RCS sending, like seeing "Typing..." on their end, seeing "Read" receipts, and more nice functions that ChatGPT tells me would be lost with that option on. I just want it to work like it did only days ago.

ChatGPT also suggested i delete all cache in Link to Windows and reboot the phone and computer. Didn't help.
I checked if PhoneLink was on the most recent version and it says that it is. My link to Windows version is 1.26051.98.0 ; I'm not sure if there's a way to check for updates, but I see that there's an option on the three dots for "Uninstall updates" so that leads me to believe it always updates to the latest version, perhaps.

Hoping someone has ideas and that maybe it's happening to lots of people with some bug released?

Thanks! - milo

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5 answers

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Answer 1

Nancy Aubitz Hunter 0

From above question: I love Phone Link on my Win 11 Desktop when I'm home instead of using my phone for texting. It's connected to my Galaxy S26 Android through Link to Windows. But all of a sudden, it's not showing what I text I send from my phone....just the other person's responses. Oddly, if I send a photo from my phone, THAT does show up on Phone link.

This happened this weekend but just the opposite. I can see my sent text messages on my computer and on my phone, but I can only see responses on my phone. I use Windows 11 and have a Samsung S23Plus. I have tried so many things to fix it and I'm at my whits end. I've been using RCS. I cleared Cache. I tried setting it to SMS/MMS and that didn't work.

Lychee-Ng 28,915 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-10-02T06:58:33.89+00:00

Hi Nancy, just today, I've seen another thread about SMS display issue on PhoneLink (except that it's with Pixel Phone). Although it's not a proof saying this is a wide-spread problem, it's worth reporting this to be investigated as soon as possible. Please follow my instructions on how to do it for Milo in the replies above!

Answer 2

Barbara Smith 0

My experience is related to a very recent update (days) to the Phone Link app on windows 11.

Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures 5 Reputation points

2026-06-29T07:10:14.79+00:00

i'm not following your comment. You say "your experience" but you don't say what your experience is. Are you saying that you're experiencing the same issue that I am? And how do you know that Phone Link updated on Win 11? Perhaps mine did, but i don't know what would have caused that or how to tell.

Answer 3

Lychee-Ng 28,915 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures,

I completely understand how frustrating it is when everything was working fine, then suddenly broke without you changing anything. From your description and user reports, it’s reasonable to suspect a change or regression in RCS handling.

Since you mentioned that everything is up-to-date, I’m just wondering, if your Galaxy S26 Samsung phone updated to One UI 8.5 recently? Or enrolled for the One UI 9 Beta? Newer system builds like those can sometimes introduce incompatibilities.

Unfortunately, if it’s a backend behavior, there's unlikely anything we can do from user-side, besides waiting for the next updates. Still, I can give you some suggestions to see if anything can improve the situation. They’re all safe/reversible so that’s a plus:

1 - Repair / Reset the application

On your PC, open Settings > System > System components
Find Phone Link > click three-dot > Advanced options
Scroll to the bottom, click Terminate > then Repair
If the issue persists, go back and click Reset.

2 - Uninstall the latest updates to phone services

On your phone, also open Settings > Apps
Search and tap Link to Windows Service (if found)
Click the three-dot > uninstall updates > back to default.

Overall, since this is sudden and relates to a specific feature, it points to a regression, not a misconfiguration. If none of the above helps, our best next steps are to report it and wait for an app update.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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Lychee-Ng 28,915 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-17T09:51:00.0166667+00:00

If you have any updates on the issue in the future, consider continuing to share in this thread so others who follow this can check it out.
Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures 5 Reputation points

2026-06-29T07:12:31.1766667+00:00

I am indeed on 8.5. how would i report it? to Samsung somehow? Or Microsoft? I don't know how that would go. Thanks!
Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures 5 Reputation points

2026-06-29T07:31:30.9666667+00:00

I am indeed on 8.5. how would i report it? to Samsung somehow? Or Microsoft? I don't know how that would go. Thanks!
Lychee-Ng 28,915 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-29T08:17:57.4166667+00:00
Hi Milo, personally I would do both. I mean, they're just reports, right? The more people take a look at it, the more likely it will be considered. For Samsung, I can't really say for them since it's not truly in my best scope of knowledge and I'd rather not giving you the wrong path, but I assume you can go through Samsung community/support, just as the same as you're getting help from Microsoft Q&A here.

For Microsoft, there are quite a few paths as you already saw in the AI answer, I'll just mention them one more time:

On Android: In the Link to Windows app, tap the menu icon (top corner) > Give us Feedback.

On PC:

Open Phone Link > Settings (gear icon) > Help & Feedback

Or press Win + F to open Feedback Hub

Just a small note: You can also find similar reports in Feedback Hub to upvote!
Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures 5 Reputation points

2026-06-29T19:51:02.4233333+00:00

I am indeed on 8.5. how would i report it? to Samsung somehow? Or Microsoft? I don't know how that would go. Thanks!
Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures 5 Reputation points

2026-06-29T19:53:01.4566667+00:00

Apologies that I made that statement about 8.5 three times. The page kept saying it wasn't going through , but apparently it did!

Answer 4

Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures 5

I've been using the combo of PhoneLink and LinkToWindows for many years successfully and this absolutely all worked great until this week. I've had the s26 for months. So this is not normal behavior. Either something changed on my phone, my computer, or there was indeed a regression in how one of the two tools worked. I'll definitely take your suggestion to do those two feedback forms, thank you.

Any other suggestions from you or anyone reading this thread would be appreciated!

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Answer 5

Messages sent and received in Phone Link depend on how messaging is handled on the Android device. Phone Link supports SMS and MMS, and RCS only on select Samsung devices under specific conditions.

When RCS is enabled and messages are sent as RCS instead of SMS/MMS, Phone Link may not be able to display those messages. This matches the behavior described: when “Only send SMS and MMS messages” is turned on, Phone Link shows the sent messages again; when it is turned off (allowing RCS), sent messages stop appearing, while MMS photos can still appear because they are handled as MMS.

From the available information, there is no supported configuration change in Phone Link or Link to Windows that restores full RCS features (typing indicators, read receipts, etc.) while also making all RCS messages appear reliably in Phone Link. The supported and documented behavior is that Phone Link works with SMS and MMS, and RCS is only available for select Samsung devices and is not guaranteed to behave identically to the native Messages app in all scenarios.

Given this, the practical options are:

Keep “Only send SMS and MMS messages” enabled so that all messages appear in Phone Link (but lose some RCS features).
Turn that option off to keep full RCS features on the phone, accepting that Phone Link may not show all sent messages.
Monitor for app updates to Phone Link and Link to Windows that might improve RCS handling, and use the built-in feedback mechanisms to report the issue so it can be investigated as a potential regression:
- On the PC: Phone Link → Settings → Feedback & Community → Send feedback.
- On Android: Link to Windows → Settings → Provide Feedback.

If this started only recently, it may be a regression in a recent update, but the documented and supported behavior remains that SMS/MMS are fully supported, and RCS support is limited.

References: