10 means Android and Windows 10 can work well together

Y'all can sync reminders between an Android device and a Windows 10 PC, share files and more than — if you have the correct apps.

If you regularly utilize a Windows 10 PC and an Android phone or tablet, at that place are several Android apps yous can install that can seamlessly link the catamenia of information betwixt the two. For instance, yous can beginning a quick notation on your telephone, then finish it later on your Windows ten PC, or y'all tin receive the same alert on both devices for an engagement.

The following Windows ten-friendly Android apps are all from Microsoft — and all gratuitous. To get the kind of interoperability described in a higher place, you demand to be signed into each of the apps on your Android device with the aforementioned Microsoft online business relationship you use to sign into your Windows 10 reckoner.

1. Cortana: Sync reminders between your Windows PC and Android device

The Cortana app for Android lets you lot create reminders that will sync with, and transport notifications to, your Windows 10 PC. To fix a reminder in the Cortana app for Android, tap the three-dot icon on the upper-right of the app's main screen, tap Reminders, tap "Remember to…" on the next screen, and enter a name for your reminder to the right of the circumvolve icon.

Then you can tap "Gear up a time" to gear up the time when you desire to exist sent a notification for this reminder. You can also enter a destination (by tapping "Ready a place") that will trigger the notification when yous physically arrive at that location with your phone, or add together an prototype to the reminder ("Add a photo").

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Reminders fix in the Cortana Android app (left) will appear on your Windows ten PC, including in the Start carte (right).

One time ready, this reminder will sync with your Windows 10 PC; for case, if you have the Agenda app pinned as a live tile on the Start menu, the reminder volition appear on the Agenda app'due south tile. And when you click the time/appointment icon on the notification expanse of Windows 10, the reminder will appear listed on a side panel below a calendar.

And, yes, this works in reverse: You can prepare reminders on your Windows 10 PC (either through the Calendar app or Cortana) that will evidence up on your Android device via the Cortana app.

2. OneDrive: Access files on your Windows x PC with your Android device

You probably already know that Windows x comes with Microsoft'southward cloud storage service, OneDrive, which is integrated deeply into the Os — it shows upwards as a folder in the File Explorer. Dragging documents, images or other types of files to it automatically uploads them to the cloud.

The OneDrive Android app lets you view documents or images stored in your OneDrive folder. (If you lot tap an image file or PDF in your OneDrive deject folder, the OneDrive app will load information technology in its own viewer. If you tap a document, like a evidently-text file or Word document, the document will be downloaded to your Android device and the default app that you apply to view this certificate format will load it.)

You lot tin can also ready the OneDrive app to automatically upload photos and videos that you capture with your Android device'southward camera to your OneDrive folder. You tin then access these photos and videos on your Windows ten PC.

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The OneDrive Android app gives you admission to documents and images in your OneDrive cloud storage (left). You can also have the app automatically upload photos and videos from your Android device to your OneDrive cloud storage (right).

To enable automatic upload from the photographic camera (or to make certain it already is enabled): In the Android app, tap the Me icon on the lower-right of the principal screen, tap Settings, and tap "Camera upload" on the next screen. There are also options for uploading only via Wi-Fi, uploading only while the Android device is plugged in to accuse its battery, and including or excluding videos from automatic uploads.

3. Outlook: Sync calendar events between your Windows 10 PC and Android device

Patently, the Outlook Android app is primarily meant for accessing your email from Microsoft services such as Exchange, Office 365 or Outlook.com. (It can be used with your Gmail or Yahoo Mail account, also.) Simply the Outlook app also has a calendar tool that syncs with the Calendar app on your Windows 10 PC — through it, you can enter appointments and reminders of things to do on days and times you selection. Both your Android device and your Windows ten PC will send you alerts as event deadlines approach.

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Events that you create in Outlook on your Android device (left) will appear in the Calendar app on your Windows x PC (correct).

On the Android app, you lot get to this calendar tool by borer the third icon along the bottom of the master screen. (Information technology looks like a folio from a daily calendar, showing the current date.) And then you tap on a day you want to marking with an outcome reminder (by scrolling vertically through a list of dates below a portion of the agenda at the summit of the screen).

Side by side, tap the "+" button on the lower-right of the screen. On the side by side screen for setting a new event, you choice the fourth dimension, enter a location for the event, and fix how far in advance you'll receive the alert. You tin can too add the people from your contacts listing yous want to receive notifications near the event.

Like setting reminders with the Cortana app, this works in reverse. If yous set appointments or events in the Calendar app on your Windows 10 PC, you will become alerts on your Android phone through the Outlook app.

4. OneNote: Sync notes from your Android device to your Windows 10 PC

A Windows app version of OneNote is included with Windows x. Installing the OneNote Android app on your mobile device tin can be handy for creating notes while you lot're on the become that you tin can edit more thoroughly afterwards on your Windows 10 PC.

With the Android app, you can brand notes or to-do checklists by entering text for them through your Android device's touchscreen keyboard, handwriting with a digital pen, or voice-typing. You tin depict doodles on your notes with your finger or digital pen, and add photos to a note with your Android device's camera.

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Draw on your notes with a finger or digital pen in the OneNote Android app.

5. Your Phone Companion: Manage your Android phone notifications, pictures, text messages, and make vox calls from Windows 10

You tin take the notifications and text messages that your Android phone gets automatically forwarded to your Windows ten PC, and also accept admission to your phone's photos from the PC. First, install the Your Phone Companion app on your Android phone. Launch the app and sign in to it with the same Microsoft user account that y'all sign in to your Windows 10 PC with.

On your PC, launch the Your Phone app. Clicking the Photos push button on the navigation toolbar on the left lets you view the photos and screenshots that are stored on your Android phone. You can salvage an image to your PC by correct-clicking on its thumbnail.

Click Messages or Notifications in the navigation bar to read the incoming text messages or notifications on your phone. Yous can reply to text letters or blazon new text messages correct in the Your Phone app on your PC; the messages will exist forwarded to your Android phone to send out. If a notification is an incoming message from a messaging app on your phone, y'all tin can answer to the sender the same way.

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Using the Your Phone app on your Windows 10 PC, y'all can view notifications and answer to text messages that your Android phone receives.

To choose the apps on your Android phone that yous want to send notifications to on your Windows 10 PC, click the Settings icon in the lower-left corner of the Your Phone app. In the principal console, ringlet downward to Notifications and click "Choose which apps notify y'all." A listing of all the apps on your Android telephone that can transport notifications will scroll down. Y'all can click the switch past each app proper noun to stop its notifications from being forwarded to your Windows 10 PC.

Finally, you lot can make a voice telephone call by clicking the bottom button in the navigation bar, Calls. This feature, currently in beta, requires that your phone and PC be linked together through a Bluetooth connection, so that the Your Phone app tin can road your voice call to your phone.

6. Microsoft Launcher: Access your Windows 10 Timeline from your Android device

In Windows x, Timeline is a tape listing various things that you've done on your PC, such as opening documents and visiting websites. Click the Task View button in the taskbar to view this extensive history, which is organized by engagement. You can use Timeline to find a certificate or image yous were working on or a web page you visited and access it again. (See "5 hidden Windows ten features you should be using" for details about how to use Timeline.)

You can admission your Windows 10 Timeline from your Android phone past installing the Microsoft Launcher app on it. Sign in to the app with your Microsoft user business relationship and set Microsoft Launcher as your smartphone's default Home screen. Then from the Abode screen, swipe left to the outset screen.

On the bottom toolbar, tap the Timeline icon. A list of web pages you lot've recently visited on your Windows 10 devices appears. Tap an item to open up that spider web page in your phone's web browser. If you have Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) installed on your phone, yous can also use Timeline to open recently used documents in those apps. And if you lot open a document in an Function app on the phone, the document appears in the Timeline of a Windows 10 PC that's signed into the aforementioned user account.

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Y'all can access your web browsing history on your Windows x PC from your Android telephone by using the Microsoft Launcher app.

seven. Office Lens: Sync "scans" taken with your Android device to your Windows 10 PC

This corking Part Lens app by Microsoft isn't specifically linked with Windows 10 merely integrated with OneDrive. Information technology'southward for capturing documents, which can include business cards and receipts, with your Android device's camera. (Microsoft likes to say you're scanning such items, presumably because you're capturing text, but all you do is have a photo normally.) You can also use the app to snap images of drawings, handwriting or text on chalkboards, whiteboards or signs.

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When you snap a picture with Role Lens (left), the app automatically aligns, cleans up and crops the paradigm earlier saving information technology to OneDrive (right).

Part Lens automatically aligns, cleans upwards and crops the captured prototype, and can convert information technology into editable text and graphics in OneNote, PowerPoint or Word format, or preserve its formatting as a PDF. The captured document image is automatically uploaded to your OneDrive folder (which y'all tin can, of course, then access on your Windows 10 PC).

Annotation: The OneDrive app for Android also comes with a tool that lets you capture documents, merely information technology lacks the ability to change your phone's camera resolution to capture in a higher or lower image quality.

8. Microsoft Launcher or OneNote: Admission, create, edit and manage your Viscid Notes from your Android device

On Windows 10, you can rapidly create notes and to-do lists using the Viscous Notes app. There is no official Sticky Notes app for mobile devices. Instead, you can access your Sticky Notes, and besides create, edit or delete them, through the Microsoft Launcher or OneNote app.

To use the Microsoft Launcher, install it and set it as your smartphone's default Home screen. Swipe left to the first Home screen and tap the Glance icon on the lower left of the screen. In the main screen, scroll down through the information cards until you lot see your Sticky Notes.

In OneNote, in that location'due south a Viscid Notes icon on the lower right of the primary screen. Tap information technology to view a listing of your notes.

Notes that you create, edit or delete through either Android app are synced to the Sticky Notes app on your Windows x PC.

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Yous can use either the Microsoft Launcher or OneNote app for Android to access and manage your Mucilaginous Notes that you created on your Windows 10 PC.

ix. Microsoft Border: Sync your browsing history between your phone and Windows ten

In one case yous sign in to it with your Microsoft user account, the Android version of Microsoft'due south web browser, Edge, will sync your bookmarks, history and other data from Edge on your Windows 10 PC to it. But why bother using Edge at all — peculiarly if you're primarily browsing with Chrome on your PC?

Outset, information technology can be helpful to keep an culling browser on your telephone every bit a fill-in in case you see an effect with the Android version of Chrome. If yous're already using Windows 10 in coordination with your Android phone, Edge is a natural backup choice.

Second, when y'all view a web page on your Android phone with Edge, you tin can forwards that page directly to your Windows x PC and resume reading information technology in Edge on your PC. To practice this, in Border for Android, tap the middle icon that's toward the bottom of the app. A list of your Windows 10 PCs will appear. Tap the one that you want to forward the web page to. Then, on that PC, the Edge browser will automatically launch and load the web page you forwarded.

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With the Android version of Microsoft's browser Edge, you tin forward a web page straight to your Windows 10 PC and continue viewing it on the Windows 10 version of Edge.

10. Microsoft Solitaire Collection: Play the classic Windows menu game on your Windows 10 PC and Android device in sync

The archetype Microsoft Solitaire game was rebooted for Windows 10 equally a Windows app that includes five card games: Klondike, Spider, FreeCell, TriPeaks and Pyramid. Y'all tin connect the app to Microsoft'south online gaming service, Xbox Alive, to earn achievements, compete confronting other players, and share video clips of your gaming sessions.

Microsoft released an Android version of Microsoft Solitaire Collection that has all these features. Yous tin fifty-fifty start a game on this app, stop playing, and resume it later on your Windows 10 PC — your game data and progress are saved and synced to the deject through Xbox Live.

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You tin starting time a game of solitaire on your Android phone and cease it afterward on your Windows 10 PC, thanks to Xbox Alive syncing.

This story was originally published in April 2017 and updated in January 2020.

Read this adjacent: How to create a complete Microsoft experience on Android

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