How to Get iMessage on Android with WeMessage

Jan 9, 2018 - 11 Comments

iMessage on Android with weMessage

If you’re an Android user and you wish you had iMessage on your device, you’ll be happy to hear about there is a solution that effectively brings iMessage onto an Android device. It’s called WeMessage, and it’s a third party effort that uses an interesting workaround to gain iMessage on Android devices.


But there is a catch; you must have a Mac, along with an Android device of course. The Mac is necessary because weMessage works by essentially using a Mac as a software relay point, which then passes the messages along to the Android device and accompanying Android app, and vice versa. This is achieved by running a weMessage server app on the Mac, which allows the client weMessage Android app to send and receive iMessages.

Whether or not you trust a third party service to relay your messages is up to you, but if you absolutely must have iMessage sending capabilities on an Android phone or tablet then this may be a reasonable solution.

Note this approach is different from using iMessage on a Windows PC by screen sharing, though you could certainly replicate that approach on Android too with a VNC client as well if desired, which would circumvent the need to use a third party service to relay any messages. Use either, or neither, that’s up to you as well.

If this sounds appealing or interesting to you, you can download the client app as well as the server from the developer website:

Note you’ll also need to get Java on the Mac, and enable some specific accessibility features that allow weMessage to run as expected.

iMessage on Android through weMessage

The developer created a helpful walkthrough video on how to get iMessage working on Android by way of WeMessage and weServer, you can watch that below:

And if you just want a little overview video demonstrating the WeMessage app in action to send and receive iMessages on Android, the developer created one of those too:

WeMessage is a tricky solution that offers Android access to imessage, but it apparently works fine – for now anyway – though it wouldn’t be too surprising if it were shut down at some point.

As for an official iMessage for Android app coming from Apple, that seems unlikely, as Apple seems to prefer keeping the iMessage platform restricted to Apple devices, but who knows, maybe it will happen?

And if all of this sounds too complex, then opt for the iMessage over VNC and Screen Sharing trick which works with Windows, Linux, and Android, but also requires a Mac. It’s pretty easy to setup, and offers general remote access to the entire Mac along with imessage from any device that can authenticate to the Mac host.

Sans a modern Android device I am unable to test this myself at the moment, but if you give it a try do share your experience in the comments below.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Tips & Tricks

11 Comments

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  1. CrApple Hack says:

    Apple is for users akin to little children, sort of like training wheels. Everything is locked down so much to stop its infant users from burning their fingers. Android is for big boys and girls.

  2. Phred says:

    I do not have a Facebook account, so I have no worries.

  3. Phred says:

    If you have a lot of friends who use iMessage, I guess this has value.

    My friends all use WhatsApp.

    It has great merit as a fun, “hey cool look at this” project.

    • Android SDK says:

      I would not use WhatsApp unless you like having all your messages indexed and used by Facebook (even after you delete them).

  4. Howie Isaacks says:

    Android users don’t deserve iMessage.

    • Mustra says:

      Soon enough every android user will have it. We are just waiting for another Apple update to either iOS or Mac OS. Then all we have to do is type in for admin ‘root’, and for password nothing.

      And voila, we will have access to everything Apple has ever made.

      Pretty simple. And secure. No 3rd party involved :)

      • Howie Isaacks says:

        Apple patched that exploit. I guess you don’t keep up. As for security, I trust Apple far more than Google. Android is CRAP. There are so many security holes in Android, someone is going to mistake it for a slice of cheese.

  5. rpk says:

    I recently found out that javascript was implemented in Messages for stickers and running ‘apps’ – not sure who thought that was ever a good idea.

    Apple even made a patch in 2016 when a researcher discovered they could download a users Messages database just by sending a link with embedded javascript to someone via Messages.

    Anyway, Spectre (for which there is no fix on recent cpus) can use javascript as an attack vector.

    So for users to open themselves to an even wider attack surface by running this ‘system’ seems extremely misguided…

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