What's new in Phone Link — the changes that actually matter

The old Photos tab — a grid of your most recent 2,000 photos and videos (it started at just 25 when Phone Link first launched) — is being folded into Windows File Explorer during 2026. In its place, your phone shows up by name in the File Explorer sidebar, which is actually more capable: you browse every folder, not only recent shots. If your Photos tab quietly disappeared, that's why — it isn't a bug. Where your photos went, and how to browse them now →

An August 2026 Link to Windows Android build was found to contain unused text for Restart, Shut down, Update and restart, Update and shut down and sleep, plus a remote-control component behind a disabled feature flag. Microsoft hasn't announced any of it: no version, no channel, no date. I'm recording it here because you'll see it written up as a feature, and it isn't one yet — you can't turn it on today.

Two details worth keeping if it does ship. The interesting label is "Update and restart", which would give a phone-side answer to the familiar restart-required state after Windows Update. And sleep would be one-way: the reported wording says the PC disconnects once asleep and you have to go to the machine to wake it. A phone also can't see unsaved work, so on a shared or working PC a convenience button is a way to lose someone's document. The existing Lock PC control is the same framework, and its rollout was uneven — which is the honest guide to how this one would arrive.

A small change with an outsized effect on whether pairing succeeds. The alphanumeric code Phone Link shows on the PC after you choose Continue without a QR code and press Continue — the no-QR Android route behind aka.ms/PairPC — used to expire in three minutes. It now lasts 10 minutes. This is route-specific: pair using the QR method instead and the code there still expires in three minutes, which is the difference between calmly finding your phone and starting the whole flow again. iPhone is unchanged: the Bluetooth pairing code there still expires in three minutes, so don't carry the new number across platforms. The Android walkthrough →

Windows 11 build 26300.9032 adds hover previews for phone notifications in the Start menu's mobile pane — point at a notification and more of it appears without opening anything. It needs Phone Link 1.26021.3.0 or later, and it's controlled from Phone Link → Settings → Start menu personalization. Three honest caveats: it shipped to the Insider Experimental channel as a controlled rollout, so having the build makes you eligible rather than entitled; Microsoft's note says "mobile device" rather than Android, so treat any Android-only claim as unconfirmed either way; and it explicitly does not bring back the Photos tab. One more thing it can't do: Android 15's protection of one-time passcodes applies here too, so the hover card is no shortcut to a 2FA code.

This one didn't come from Microsoft at all, which is exactly why it's easy to miss. Microsoft's support wording says RCS reaches Phone Link only when your phone's default messaging app is Samsung Messages — and on 6 July 2026 Samsung retired that app in the United States for Galaxy devices running Android 12 or newer, moving everyone to Google Messages. It can no longer send ordinary messages there and has been pulled from the Galaxy Store; other regions are unaffected for now. Net effect for a US Galaxy owner: the only documented path to RCS inside Phone Link was closed by Samsung, while Microsoft's condition still reads as though it exists. What Phone Link carries instead →

The Copilot entry point that briefly lived on the phone side was removed at the end of May 2026. If a guide or screenshot still shows it and you can't find it, you're not missing a setting — it's gone. Nothing else about pairing or the core messages/calls/notifications experience changed with it. The features Microsoft has quietly added and removed →

Resume lets Windows offer to pick up something you were doing on your phone, straight from the taskbar — the closest Windows gets to Apple's Handoff. It used to work only through Link to Windows; in January 2026 Microsoft added a second route via the Windows Notification System, so more apps can offer it. It still depends on each app's developer building support in, which is why it shows up for some things and not others. How Resume actually behaves →

Mirrored apps used to be stuck in a narrow, phone-shaped window. Since January 2026 you'll get a nudge offering Expanded screen, which stretches the app across your desktop by asking the phone to relaunch it in a wider layout and streaming the bigger version back. Two honest caveats: it leaves roughly 10% of the display unused, and it depends entirely on the app — tablet-ready ones look great, others refuse the wider layout, and a few (WhatsApp is the usual offender) come through blurry. Mirroring, Expanded screen and the heat trade-off →

Almost every guide still describes Link to Windows on the phone as a one-way pipe you install once to pair, and nothing more. That stopped being true in December 2025: from build 1.25102.140.0 onward the phone app is a genuine control surface, letting you manage the connection, see what's linked and adjust more from the phone itself. It's the update most people have missed, because nothing on screen announced it. What the phone side can do now →

At the time of writing, that page still leads with contact syncing, the jump from 25 to 2,000 recent photos, and drag-and-drop on the Surface Duo — announcements from years back. Nothing on it covers the December 2025 phone-side redesign, Expanded screen, or Copilot's retirement — the three changes most likely to affect what you see on screen today. It hasn't been abandoned in the sense of being taken down; it just doesn't seem to be anyone's job to maintain. That's the gap this timeline fills.