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Best Integrated Messaging Setup

While I'm working in China, I've got a China Mobile sim card for my local contacts, I've ported my US number to Google Voice for my contacts at home, and I've got people messaging me on multiple apps (Voxer, Skype, Google Talk, Kik, Mysms). I'm looking for a good way to slim things down a bit.
What's the best setup you've found for simplifying your messaging situation? I'm interested in any creative solutions, and I'm especially interested in hearing from people who are dealing with international messaging and phone numbers in separate countries. I'd also love to hear tricks you've found for settings within the apps you use. I know there are ways to configure these things in order to optimize their functionality.

[Q] Best sms app

Cant some suggest me a sms app that could posible have best features like send message to my already present groups etc .. and still it shouldnt ask me to make it as default cuz stock messaging app asks me to select which sim to send sms from and what sim has received message iam asking it this way because sms apps available now dont support dual sim i guess . if they do suport dual sim suggest me one or two but signle sim suport ? the one which can send group sms with ease and c an forward received message with ease

Not so sure about dual sim
Kaushik124 said:
Cant some suggest me a sms app that could posible have best features like send message to my already present groups etc .. and still it shouldnt ask me to make it as default cuz stock messaging app asks me to select which sim to send sms from and what sim has received message iam asking it this way because sms apps available now dont support dual sim i guess . if they do suport dual sim suggest me one or two but signle sim suport ? the one which can send group sms with ease and c an forward received message with ease
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try out textra or chompsms.Textra is a really good sms app however, I'm not so sure if it supports dual sim or whatnot.

I've been using textra ever since it was a week old. Its amazing.
Sent from my RCT6378W2 using Tapatalk

I like very much Go Sms Pro.

please but textra has possibility personalize notifications by contact name? and emoticons supports? can anyone test? thanks

I've been using EvolveSMS since I first found it, moved instantly from Hangouts.

Textra is the best low weight SMS app. Nothing of what the developer says is exaggerated. It is seriously beautiful and puts OEM messaging apps to shame, works well with a small system footprint. Actually all we need.
EvolveSMS is slick, sliding sms app and more customizable. Probably it is slightly better for those who still send MSM.
Go SMS Pro is a fat and heavy pig that sends ads and sell add-ons. I guess that is fully ok for most kids as long as one can change the font, insert stickers and add angry birds theme. But it seems it the only 3. party sms app which supports dual Sim phones. Buhhh ...

I love handscent SMS is one of the best with customizable skins and does take a lot of resources like Go SMS Pro would

Truedialer - Phone & Contacts

Ever looked at your call history and wondered, whose numbers are these?
Truedialer magically adds names & photos to unknown numbers in your call history, making your phone Truly smart. Time to replace your standard dialer!
Truedialer is brought to you by Truecaller, a community of over 100 million members working together to create a smarter communication experience.
Features:
- No more unknown numbers in your call history
- Access over 1.6 billion contacts using the Truecaller search integration
- T9 search for fastest access to contacts
- Access information about your contacts even those you haven’t saved
- Support for over 500 Dual SIM devices
Other great stuff:
- Incredibly fast experience
- User friendly shortcuts to access different features (ie: swipe left, swipe right)
- Dark theme
Would love to have your feedback!
Also (of course) available for download on Google Play, here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller.phoneapp

anyways i can flash this over my stock dialer. cynodenmod 12.1 has truedialer os stock dialer for oneplus one. wuld like to replace my stock dialer on nexus 5 running cm 12.1 with this. as an app its only half useful, as stock dialer its great..

Not working no more, F true caller, how can I make it work?

SMS app to combine conversations from the same contact in the same chat window

Hy there,
I hope I posted where I should and if I didn't please tell me the correct section where I should do this. Also, I am not a developer, I do not have root on my phone. I do not want solutions that require changing XML files or anything. I am just asking about an app that I could find in the Play Store, or, maybe, and apk to download (this being the second option)
I have a problem with the messaging app since I left my HTC One S for the Nexus 5X in June 2016 and I did not find an app to replace that, not even on my current Oneplus 5T.
So, I have a contact in my phonebook saved with multiple numbers - work / mobile / home etc. and she texts SMS from either of the numbers (doesn't really matter because they are included in the carrier plan as unlimited). But my messaging app is sorting those SMS as different entries by phone number, and not by contact. So if we start a conversation in a chat window based on the home number, the answer may end up in a different chat windows (she has a dual sim phone so it depends on the settings on which is right now, and because the SMSs are "free", she tends to not look at which carrier is using, because, why would you if they are all free?), but this actually disrupts the logical flow of the conversation.
I know that a such app exists because I used it on HTC One S in 2012 and I was able to send SMS to which number I wanted to select (home / mobile / work of the same contact from the phonebook) and I had all the conversation in only one place, but after I changed on Nexus 5X and now on OnePlus 5T I can not find this feature in the installed app messenger (Google's or Oneplus's), neither on Google searches or specialized websites. I have tested some of the SMS apps, looked for settings, but all of them seem to show the SMSs based on the phone number, and not based on the contact entries.
Can someone suggest an app that could do that? Maybe I didn't search good enough.
P.S. The MMS option to send grouped messages is not an option because this means I will send the same SMS to multiple numbers, but those numbers are of the same person so there is no need to do that ...
Thank you very much for Your answer.

VOIP For expatriates, multi-country presence, & escaping carrier-bound phone numbers

VOIP For expatriates, multi-country presence, & escaping carrier-bound phone numbers
VOIP for Expatriates
The bottom line turned out to be, there is no good way to have worldwide phone connectivity unless all of the numbers you use are VOIP numbers, and the SIM/wireless provider simply becomes a wireless ISP. This started out an analysis for CallHippo, which I tried out for a month, but it branched out. So far, I've only worked with CallHippo, RingCentral, and Google Voice, and looked at GrassHopper and Phone.com. I've highlighted the other's differences in red. You might be able to somehow use MagicJack in the fit too. One thing to keep in mind is once you leave the SIM or standard PSTN, VOIP often requires 10-digit dialing. That many not matter to you, but it might to those calling you. 7-digit dialing requires a relationship between the PSTN provider and the phone company for your area.
Cost: The only CallHippo plan that makes any sense is the $15.00/$18.00 plan because the number is free, you get 800 incoming, and 200 outgoing minutes after which you pay a penny a minute. Additional numbers are $6.00/mo. from ~200 different countries.
Advantages:
1. The call quality and latency are good.
2. The call recording is good, and without the intrusive nonsense of, "this call is being recorded". It just works, and they back them up as well as your call logs. The advantages of this cannot be understated. Unless you are doing contracts over the phone you don't want that. Most people just want a note taker so you don't need to interfere with the conversation to write things down, especially while driving. It keeps track of time on calls for invoicing purposes. In most cases, it is not possible to know ahead of time if you will need to play it back later or they will be giving you numbers to write down etc.
3. Very flexible with multiple people using the same number at the same time and ring through to other devices, and using devices like extensions. This is different from something such as RingCentral and Phone.com which can use SIP devices because it assigns it a number on the PSTN. With Grasshopper, the device must already have a number in the PSTN to forward the call to, to use it as an extension, which must be Internet accessible, and has it's own voice mail and greetings per extension. Nothing is more feature-rich than RingCentral and it includes MMS, never-busy FAX number, video and call conferencing, and can manage and access everything from a soft-phone on a computer. Phone.com can do nearly as much, but no MMS. A big advantage of systems that can use a SIP device means you do not need to pay for cellular PSTN number to forward to, which requires the additional expense, and something that needs to change every time you change SIMs. With GrassHopper, every time you change SIMs or let your SIM lapse somewhere, you would have to reconfigure because you would lose your number to forward to. You can still forward, and you aren't counting minutes. If the end point for the number will be a cell phone, then CallHippo might make more sense.
4. It only costs $6.00/mo. for each additional line, which can be from ~200 different countries, giving you local presence in multiple countries from anywhere. RingCentral requires a $34.00 plan for the US plus a $44.00 plan plus a 2-year commitment. With Phone.com I can get 1 US line and 1 foreign line for $14.99/mo. by the year or $19.99/mo. by the month. You get 500 minutes and $.039/min. after that or you can buy a bigger plan. If they had Colombia, I'd go with it.
5. The overall combination of good call quality, call recording, flexible use of lines, and local presence in other countries for $6.00/line set it apart. Phone.com also supports a limited number foreign countries at a very practical cost, and would be by far the better way to go IF they support the countries you need.
Disadvantages:
1. Their web site is a confusing hodge-podge of pages that indicating it was built without a plan and pages added to piecemeal to add a capability. Signup was and getting things going was cruel and required multiple chats. RingCentral is very well done. Phone.com seemed like a bit of a put-off because it seems they want you to get a quote. However, it is actually by far the best. A real-live-American will assemble the features you need so it doesn't need to fit anything, and give you a quote where you are getting everything you need and nothing you don't, and at a better price than any other.
2. Competent support will not be available when you need it. This has been true in all but one case. RingCentral's support is good, and Phone.com's is off the charts.
3. CallHippo cannot dial from your Android contacts, nor does it's sync to contacts work. If you enter the numbers into CallHippo's directory by hand they will work but then you cannot use those CallHippo contacts anywhere else. If select a Contacts from Android Contacts to dial, it will return an error that the phone number not valid. This is the problem:
__a. In Android Contacts when you enter a phone number 1234567890 into Android, it will automatically format it to (123) 456-7890.
__b. The CallHippo directory stores contacts like this: 1234567890.
__c. The CallHippo Contacts is designed to work worldwide numbers. For numbers stored as US numbers, it will prepend a 1 and dial 1123456789.
__d. When you select a number from Android Contacts, it receives (123) 456-7890 from Contacts, for the US it prepends a 1 for 1(123) 456-7890 and returns an error that the number is not valid
4. Like most VOIP solutions, it only has SMS, not MMS. RingCentral Supports both.
5. The combination of the poor support, poor website layout, not-well-thought-out contact access
*RingCentral has no problem here nor does Phone.com.
Summary:
- What sets CallHippo apart is the combination of call recording and local presence in multiple countries for only $6.00/mo. That make the penny a minute make sense. Phone.com can do this better if you can live with the much smaller country list they support.
- CallHippo costs $15/mo. for Silver which gives you 800 minutes of free incoming and 200 minutes of free outgoing. If you do the same for RingCentral Essentials it will cost $30/mo. but it will be unlimited free calling in both directions. If you have two people, RingCentral's price goes to $20/mo. each, making it compelling unless you need foreign or multiple lines per person. For that price CallHippo gives you automatic call recording while RingCentral will make you remember to hit the * key unless you get the more expensive packages. If you add $5/mo. to RingCentral you get fax, audio conference and video conference. CallHippo allows you to add numbers for $6.00/mo. including in foreign countries. RingCentral only works with US numbers and it would cost another full monthly service charge. Google Voice is free, but it is only a US number and you must give them a US number for confirmation. I'm not sure if you will need a confirmation number at any point in the future but I do know that if the number is no longer available, the service does not stop. Call recording for inbound calls only and does an announcement. This enables free calls to from anywhere to anywhere in the US for free, and makes you reachable from anywhere in the US. This does not enable free local calling to and from a foreign country from anywhere. The way I can see this working is if you don't care about call recording, and you got a VOIP number in the foreign country. Otherwise, when you were out of country, you would not be able to be directly contacted from that country, and you would have multiple VOIP provider apps. You hear a lot about GrassHopper. It is more feature-rich than CallHippo, but the problem is it is more of a forwarding service. That means you need to have a number to forward to that you are maintaining from another service. Thus, GrassHopper's fit is for a US-based business using other phones as extensions. It doesn't do call recording, every time you change SIMs the number you forward to would have to change, and anything foreign would be at long distance rates. It is clearly not a fit for international use. Phone.com makes a ton of sense if their limited non-US country list works for you.
- CallHippo's poor website layout, poor support, and not having something as basic as dialing from Contacts working, indicates an amateur operation. RingCentral and Phone.com excel in all of these categories and even sharing a contact list. Not being able to dial from you Contact list? People's expectations of a dialer goes beyond that. They expect to be able to paste a number in from a web page and have it dial.
- I believe CallHippo has a lot of potential but it seems like it's in the alpha stage. Will it even exist tomorrow, and what happens to your ported numbers then? The attraction is there isn't anything with this level of functionality and price for doing frequent coordination in multiple countries.
- Defining the market for this service is a bit of a challenge. As a VOIP IP PBX system, it is much more limited than most. It doesn't work with regular SIP hardware for inside of an office. If you use your cell phone as your desk phone, you still cannot share a company telephone directory, nor can you use its Contacts to dial from because their sync does not make the telephone numbers available in a format that CallHippo can use, nor is there any other way to import or export Contacts. It cannot sanitize numbers copied from web pages. Ideally, as an expatriate, you want your domestic and foreign numbers to be VOIP numbers so when you switch SIMs, nothing changes because the wireless provider does not host your number. He is simply providing Internet access for the numbers. CallHippo's main detractors are the Contact list situation, and no MMS support. So it seems like the only market fits for CallHippo are for a single expatriate, or a one-man business that needs local presence to call other businesses in foreign countries.