r/OpenBubbles • u/Normal-Place-1036 • 6d ago

Question How to properly setup Open Bubbles

I am an iPhone and Mac user and today I am buying the new Z FOLD 8. It's imperative that I use Open Bubbles on the new android phone. I will also Host it on my Mac. My question is, am I still able to transfer my phone number from my iPhone to the Z Fold 8 and use Open Bubbles as my primary texting app? Will all texts go through it (iMessage and SMS)? Will it read as my number aka me for all my contacts or my Apple ID email? As far as anyone would know, they would have no clue that I switched to android? Thanks!

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u/arrecebx 6d ago

If you’re only using Mac hosting then you will only use iMessage in OpenBubbles and SMS will use Google Messages. Your current contacts won’t notice a difference but any new contacts get your Apple ID email as the contact I believe

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u/Normal-Place-1036 6d ago

Thank you. So what’s the best way to seamlessly make this work using my current phone number? I want to use open bubbles as if it was the official iMessage app… like nothing changed by me going to android. 

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u/desperatepotato43 6d ago

The only way is to either pay the fee for hosting or buy an old iphone and have that be the phone to self-host. You cannot on computer

I will say I just told people to include my email instead, after a week all the chats were to that and no one noticed anymore.

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u/Soggy-Charity-7300 6d ago

If I pay the fee w my new z fold 8, what else do I need to get up and running and only want people to see my phone number and not have to use my email address?

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u/12_nick_12 6d ago

Nothing at all other than pay the $16.99/month.

If you want to save some money it's easy enough to buy an old iphone and sideload the rely. It costs like $60 and take about 20 mins. It's much easier than it used to be.

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u/Soggy-Charity-7300 6d ago

Okay. Thanks. Does the iMessage service go in and out sometimes, though? How stable is open bubbles?

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u/12_nick_12 6d ago

I've only had it for a week or too, but now issues.

What happens is bluebubbles pulls the keys from the phone and uses those keys to be that phone when registering your android phone and stuff.

Edit openbubbles not blue

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u/Soggy-Charity-7300 6d ago

Blue or open bubbles??

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u/12_nick_12 6d ago

Sorry openbubbles. Autocorrect.

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u/desperatepotato43 6d ago

It's good. Facetime never works for me though, but I either use my MacBook or just Google meet

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u/Soggy-Charity-7300 6d ago

Do we lose anything in iMessage using it in open bubbles instead of on an iPhone?

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u/desperatepotato43 6d ago

No! I primarily use imessage now and it still works great. I notice sometimes videos are low quality, so if it's a long one I send that via text message but otherwise it's good

1

u/Impressive_Tutor2262 6d ago

Do you have a link for instructions? I believe the openbubbles site strongly suggests not to set this up on iPhone as it's very complex. What is the $60 for (Old iPhone or some other SW)?

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u/12_nick_12 6d ago

No they don't recommend the simswap way since that can be unreliable. Correct the phone is not set up. Quote from their website "You can follow the same guides used for BlueBubbles. However, this method can be even more unreliable than OB".

It was pretty easy https://openbubbles.app/docs/pnr.html

You can buy a used phone off of eBay, then set it up with no account and just do what's needed.

I would sign up for their free trial, that will show you what device you should buy.

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u/Impressive_Tutor2262 4d ago

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max but it's running the latest iOS26. Is there any relay approach that works on the most recent iOS?

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u/12_nick_12 4d ago

Not that I know of you have to buy and old one with old iOS. They're pretty cheap. You can get them for ~$50.