Handcent Next SMS messenger

All that's keeping me from giving five stars is the lack of a quick way to mute a conversation (eg, have the option "Mute Conversation" when you hit the three dots) so I can do that easily during business meetings or elsewhere when I don't want to be disturbed by an active conversation. It can be done, but it must be searched for, which isn't desirable under the circumstances when I want to mute them.

Easy to set up the features you do/don't want to use. No problems sending/receiving messages. Edit 2/17/2019-I've been using this app for years. Still easy to use. I love that the app allows you to create your own background for conversations and the conversation list. You can also import ringtones. Edit 1/8/2026-I'm still using the app and I love it. There are always new themes, wallpapers, emojis, etc to choose from.

Hello. I'm new to Handcent. I'm getting used to it. But, Since the bug(help) report is so convoluted and limited, I am using a review to reach out. The issue; Using text is pretty easy and straightforward. But... the fonts are super limited on appearance. The incoming text is black on a white background. But my outgoing text is white with black outline on white background. It is difficult to read. I want my outgoing text to be black on a light background. How do I change that??

This has been my go-to texting app ever since I've owned a smartphone. The customization options are unmatched by any other messaging app...I know I love to customize everything on my phone down to the tiniest details. Any time I've ever had an issue, which is a total of 3 issues in 10+ years, the support team is easily contacted, quick, as well as efficient. They even e-mailed me a couple days afterwards to make sure that I didn't have any further problems. Highly recommended!!!

Still using after all these years. Love this app!! Update: Am not receiving any group texts. I have to switch to Google messages every couple days to make sure I haven't missed any new group texts. It's very frustrating! 1/9/26 - still love the app but was getting group chats for a few weeks and now back to not getting any. Still frustrated!!

I spent an entire day testing different texting apps, and Next SMS is by far the closest to perfect! It’s been a lifesaver for keeping my inbox organized while still saving important messages. I’d give it 5 stars if I could archive texts directly into specific labels rather than one bulk folder. Also, a Google Calendar integration would be a game-changer for my workflow. Highly recommend!

This has good customizable features, but it's clunky to set up. I could live with that, but when sending pics or videos, it sometimes just sends them and other times sends a link that recipients have to click on to get the media, which is sketchy and annoying. And now, over the last month or so, it randomly starts playing creepy Candy Crush music that you can't turn off unless you silence your phone or completely quit the app. Super frustrating when you're trying to text. I'm uninstalling.

Excellent tech help! This app has a tremendous amount of options. Twice now, I've run into something that didn't work for me, and drove myself nuts trying to figure it out. I finally asked for help, and the response was right away. We went back & forth for quite a few days, trying different options, and at last got it working. Tech is like a dog with a vote, they won't stop & leave you in the lurch, or slow down their responses when the first few don't work. Plus I really like how the emoji move

Updated review: down from 5 stars to 2; Next SMS has just become too unstable. Outgoing messages don't send, incoming messages don't arrive. I can go in to settings and reset jobs or whatever, and things will work again for a while, but it's too unreliable. Even rebooting the phone doesn't always restore functionality. This is the most customizable texting app I've found, which I will miss, but it's just doesn't do the job of sending and receiving texts, so I've moved on to another app.

it's a good app. love the options and features..works well. would recommend it. it would be great if it could search links sent in the multimedia list. it also would be nice to have a button to start a text with just a number. it's not intuitive to start that way currently. 10/27/25 This app is still the best. I love all the features and that I can customize my view, background, search text & media. still waiting to be able to search or pull up links.

I've used it for a year now and it's great you can customize how you want to set it up or how you text looks. my favorite part about this app is the emoji because when you use them it has an animation. I recommend if you want a customizable texting app but now that I think of it there is one problem. It's that every 3 texts won't load i tried sending my friend some photos and a good amount of text and they wouldn't send till the next day. still would recommend.

Im only giving 3 stars being that I've used this app for the longest and maybe im missing something now? The icon would appear at the top of the screen along with a snippet of the message. Now only the icon show when I receive a text? Tried the popup setting but that gives the floating bubble with the message and I dont want that. So maybe you can direct me to the proper setting to get it back to the old way. Thank you UPDATE: After contacting the author, gave directions to get the app working!

I use this app for personal & business texting on my phone. I run our plumbing business so I have an insane amount of messages & I never delete anything. I've tried all the other text apps. None of them hold a candle to this one. After more than a year of constant use, I've yet to experience a single issue. The storage capacity far exceeds all other apps. I love the ability to schedule a future text message for when I'm taking the day off from work. For a free texting app, this can't be beat.

Once again, another update and the app says messages could not be delivered, but they go through. Sending multiple messages that don't show up in the conversation list. *EDIT* Since the last couple updates and upgrades, it has become my daily use for messages. Much improved and heading in the right direction.

This has always been a very useful and helpful texting app. Lately however they have started inserting more and more adware. Now you see advertisements that look like text messages, and handcent itself sends promotional text messages into the text stream. I realize they have to make a buck, and would like me to buy a paid version, but this is getting really intrusive.

I've been using next SMS for years and occasionally I will run into a glitch here and there. Most recently I had a problem with some group text issues and after reinstalling the app my pop up didn't seem to be working properly. I sent an email to tech support and immediately they got back to me and figured out the issue and corrected it the same day. This is the best texting application I've ever used and every phone that I go to I immediately install it. So much functionality!!!!

This is a great app. my text messages are secure and go with me to my next phone without having to go through a 3rd party to transfer them. I like a lot of the features such as being able to schedule a text to go at a later date and being able to have a secure place to store sensitive text messages. Another huge factor that makes this app worth the yearly subscription and storage fees is the customer service. It is brilliant, timely, friendly, and knowledgeable. Problems get sorted quickly!

I got away from using this messaging app (not sure why) but I've been back for a while. I've tried them all, and this is still by FAR my favorite! Customer support is the best I've dealt with. I had an "issue" with backing up my settings but it was on my end (I forgot what account I used) but after reaching out to customer support they were able to help me figure out my mistake.

Not receiving all of my messages(group messages). I am finding out from friends (many days later) that they have texted me, and I'm not receiving them. I have reset network of the phone, so that's not the issue. When I switch my default app to the phones factory installed one, the messages come through. I have always loved this app, but now I'm going to have to find another one. Any help/suggestions on how to fix this issue would be great.

Hi, I am updating my review, Dec 2025. I have been using Next SMS since 2021 I think it was, and it has always worked well, and I have had no bugs or problems with it on my various OnePlus phones. I recently needed to contact tech support (via email) about the login ability via web browser to do desktop messaging. Within an hour, tech support emailed me back, and they were very impressive about handling the issue, and fixed everthing, and even messaged me twice to be sure. I am impressed!