aVoice

aVoice Push is an open source Windows Phone 8.1 app that is primarily focused on bringing Google Voice push notifications to your phone.

Sections

Set Up Push Notifications

aVoice Push will notify you within seconds of receiving a text. Pin aVoice Push to your start screen as a wide tile for live updates. Add it to your lock screen to check for new texts at a glance! Follow this tutorial to get started:

  1. Log into your Google Voice account and click Settings
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  2. On the Voicemail & Text tab, check the following options and save (the email address listed should be yourgoogleusername@gmail.com)
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  3. Log into your Gmail account and click Settings
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  4. On the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, click the Add a forwarding address button
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  5. Enter text@avoicepush.cloudapp.net and click Next
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  6. Click Proceed
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  7. Click OK. Don’t worry about the confirmation code, aVoice doesn’t usually need it. Your phone should receive a push notification confirming that forwarding was successfully set up. Please wait up to a minute for a notification
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  8. Now go to the Filters tab and click Create a new filter
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  9. In the From text box, type txt.voice.google.com OR voice-noreply@google.com, then click Create filter with this search
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  10. Choose to forward to text@avoicepush.cloudapp.net and optionally to delete the message (so it doesn’t clutter your Inbox). Click Create filter when you’re ready
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That’s it! You should now receive a toast push notification whenever you get a text. aVoice Push also has a live tile at the largest tile size. Next, press the Home button at the bottom to load https://www.google.com/voice/m in an embedded browser. You’ll be asked to sign in again. This is normal, see the FAQ for why.

 

FAQ

How does it work? Google Voice has a few settings that will send an email to your Gmail whenever you get a text or a voicemail. We’ll turn those settings on, then head to Gmail and setup a rule so that they get silently forwarded to the aVoice push notification service.

Is this safe? That’s a great question to be asking. Sending your texts and voicemails through a 3rd party service like aVoice means that someone could be recording your personal data. Do we? Absolutely not. Don’t trust us? Understandable. Luckily, aVoice Push is an open source project. You’re free to verify that your personal data is never recorded.

Why do I have to sign in twice? The first time signs you into the aVoice Push service using Google’s OAuth protocol. This is necessary to ensure nobody else can sign up to receive your push notifications. Don’t worry, we don’t have access to your password and we only store your GoogleID and your email. The second time is just a normal browser sign in. Again, unlike other apps, we don’t have access to your password.

What if my Gmail is already forwarding all my email? On Gmail’s Settings page, on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, in the Forwarding: section, there are 2 options; Disable forwarding and Forward a copy of incoming mail to…. Usually, if you’re not using Gmail as your primary email service, the Forward a copy of incoming mail to… is selected and sending mail to your new account (ex: you@outlook.com). To use aVoice Push and still forward all other mails, switch to Disable forwarding and follow the instructions above. After you complete those, create a new Filter with -(txt.voice.google.com OR voice-noreply@google.com) in the From field. Then choose to forward those mails to you@outlook.com. This will cause all mails not from Google Voice to be forwarded to your primary email account.

No pressure, but if you feel the need to be grateful, I would be too 🙂 (note: this goes to my personal email address)

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