Don't you hate it when you are working on your computer and get an app notification on your smartphone? Would you rather have the notification show up on your computer itself? Well you can actually do that, using this super simple and free Android app called Pushbullet. All you need to do is download the app on your Android device, set up sync on it and start getting notifications from pretty much everything on your computer - SMS, Calls, WhatsApp, Facebook etc. It syncs over WiFi as well as data connection.
File Transfer
Pushbullet also comes in handy when you need to transfer data between devices. You can "push" text/URL/files from your PC to your phone and it will instantly start downloading on your phone. Same can used to transfer files from your phone to your computer. You can even push files to multiple devices at once and it will be available on all of your devices instantly. Pushbullet supports transfer of files of up to 25 MB.
Pushing files from your PC to your device is real simple. Sign into pushbullet on your PC, and you will be able to see your Android devices listed. Click on the device name, and you will get a menu on the right using which you can send text/URLs/files. For sending files, drag and drop your file on this screen, it will upload to pushbullet servers, after which you can push it to your device(s). Once pushed, you will receive a notification on your Android device, and the file starts downloading on to your device. You can tap the notification to open the file.
For sending files from your Android device, simply navigate to the file, and you will find "A New Push" option in the "Share" menu. An alternative way is to open the Pushbullet app and click on the "+" link at the bottom right corner. You can send a note/link/photo/file from there.
The beauty of this app lies in its ability to sync across devices. You push some content from say, your PC browser, and you will be able to instantly see it on all of your devices which have Pushbullet configured, including the PC itself.
Notifications mirroring
Here's how you can set up notifications mirroring on to your computer:
1. Install the Pushbullet app on your Android device. You can set it up on as many Android devices as you wish
2. Sign in using your Google or Facebook account
3. Install the Pushbullet extension for your browser (Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari) - Link
4. Enable "Android/PC notifications" and "Show notifications on my PC" options in the app menu (as shown in the screenshot below)
Once set up, you get instant notifications in the form of pop-ups on your PC.
Browser Extension
After you install the browser extension, you can access all functions from the browser button you can find to the right of your URL bar. Whenever you click the button, it will ask you if you want to push the URL of the active browser page. A particularly handy application of this feature is if you want to send someone the map co-ordinates of a location. In Google Maps, right click on the place whose location you need and then click the pushbullet browser button to push the Maps link with the place co-ordinates to your device. You can push text or URLs from the button, however, on Firefox, you will have to go to the Pushbullet website to push a file. On Chrome, it will pop out the upload box and you can drag-drop a file to push it to any or all of your devices.
The second option under the browser button is of sending texts. If you have allowed Pushbullet access to your phonebook through app settings, you can start typing the name of the contact you want to text and it will auto-complete the name for you. After that you can type in the message and send the text, right from your browser. Pushbullet also allows you to reply to received SMS messages. When you receive an SMS, clicking on the notification pop-up opens up a window in which you can type in and send your reply.
The third option under the browser button is of Notifications, which lists all your unread notifications. Once you click on any of the notification, it gets cleared from your device's notification panel as well. What's cool is that you have complete over which apps' notifications to push to your PC. You can select the apps from the "Only for some apps" option under app settings on your Android device. There is also an option to Mute Notifications from a certain app through the extension.
Pushbullet Channels
Pushbullet recently introduced a service called "Pushbullet Channels" which is similar to Flipboard, wherein you subscribe to different topics/people/websites channels listed and you get notifications on your PC whenever the channels push any updates.
Final thoughts
Pushbullet is a highly useful app and is the easiest way to transfer files, links, notes, lists, and addresses between your desktop computer and your Android device. It is much more convenient than emailing files or saving it to cloud services like Google Drive or Dropbox. The app is super-fast and makes instantaneous pushes.
