The Best Text Message Spy Apps in 2023 | How to Read Someone’s Messages

The best text message spy apps allow you to have an in-depth look at someone’s digital activity, as well as letting you monitor your child’s text messages can give you peace of mind with the knowledge they aren’t doing anything dangerous.

We’ve taken the best text message spy apps and compared them on a variety of factors, including price, user-friendliness, power of their monitoring suite, SMS tracker quality, and more.

Best Text Message Spy Apps | Top 10 Shortlist

From our testing, we’ve determined that the best text message tracking software is undoubtedly mSpy. However, the competition is tough, and the one you choose will depend on your needs and budget. With that said, here are the market leaders for text message spying:

1. mSpy — The Best Text Message Spy App in 2023 | Take Advantage of its 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
2. EyeZy — The Best Text Message Spy App For UI | Use Its 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee to Try it For Free
3. uMobix — Feature-Full Generalist Text Message Spy App | Offers a 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
4. Cocospy — Best Text Message Spy App For Ease of Use | Try For Free With Its 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
5. Spyic — Best Spy App To Read Text Messages In Terms of Money-Back Guarantee | 60-Day Money-Back Guarantee
6. Hoverwatch — Best Text Message Spy App For Businesses | Free Version Available
7. XNSpy — Best Spy App To Read Text Messages For Remote Control | 10-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
8. TheOneSpy — Deep Features With Room to Grow | 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
9. Qustodio — Best Text Message Spy App For Internet Control | 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
10. KidsGuard — Easy Social Media Monitoring With Call Recording | 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

The Best Text Spy Apps 2023 | In-Depth Reviews

Not all spy text message apps are made equal. Below we’ll go into the pros, cons, pricing, and features of each of our best text message spy apps to help you find the perfect one for you.

1. mSpy — The Best Text Message Spy App in 2023

mSpy is a goliath in the spy app space, with over a decade in the industry and a proven track record of satisfying over 1 million users, regardless of if you’re a parent looking to monitor their child or a partner going through a rough patch- mSpy has got you covered.

With mSpy, you’ll never miss a single text- the software will show you all the texts on the target phone, alongside timestamps and information on who’s sending each text.

Furthermore, you can even view images sent through text, as well as look at any multimedia files on the phone. mSpy even lets you set up alerts so that you’ll be notified if someone mentions a phrase of your choice.

This lets you relax knowing you can view all of their text messages at any time and that you’ll know immediately if it’s something you’re wary of. Now, a lot of texting these days, especially among teenagers, is done over social media.

mSpy has some of the most in-depth social media spying features out there, being able to spy even on disappearing media like Snaps on Snapchat or Stories on Instagram.

This lets you have a complete picture of what your child is up to on social media and is part of what makes mSpy the best parental spy app. And, if you’re still concerned with their activities after that, you can outright record their screen.

mSpy also excels at GPS monitoring, letting you always know where the target phone is. It’s also simple to set up geo-fencing so that you’re immediately alerted if the phone gets out of a given area.

This is great for securing devices against theft, as you can simply show the police the GPS data. See for yourself if mSpy is truly the best text message spy app; give it a try for free with its 14-day money-back guarantee.

2. EyeZy — The Best Text Message Spy App for UI

EyeZy’s user interface is so clean and efficient we can’t help but wonder how they packed so many cutting-edge features while making it only slightly harder to use than Notepad.

EyeZy works on all popular messaging platforms, including iMessages, text messages, and social media messaging apps like Messenger, WhatsApp, or Viber.

It’ll also immediately show you any multimedia files, like pictures or videos featured in the texts. This is great for quickly getting a grasp of the situation without having to wade through menus.

The entire layout of EyeZy is set up so that you can navigate it as simply as possible while not sacrificing its plethora of powerful features. This makes it the perfect spy app for less tech-savvy parents to still keep an eye on their kids.

EyeZy’s keylogger is fairly similar to mSpy’s, letting you pick keywords that’ll immediately alert you when used. This is great for finding out if your children or employees are sending inappropriate content.

You can even set EyeZy up so that it prevents texts with such inappropriate content from being sent. This is perfect for immediately intervening and stopping a situation, and it can save your child from predators.

Outside of this, EyeZy has one of the most robust browser-use monitors on the market, giving you a detailed breakdown of their searching habits, including how many times and when they visited certain sites.

You’ll also get to see bookmarks, their most-visited sites, and other statistics. With this, you can rest easy knowing that you can always look over what kinds of sites your loved ones are visiting.

Of course, EyeZy comes with a plethora of other features, including GPS monitoring, phone call spying, GPS tracker, and more.

If a powerful, easy-to-use app is the best spy app to read text messages for you, try EyeZy for free with its 14-day money-back guarantee now.

3. uMobix — Feature-Full Generalist Text Message Spy App

uMobix is an excellent generalist choice for text message spying with excellent social media & dating app monitoring capabilities.

Not only can uMobix spy text message apps and show you all the conversations alongside timestamps and names of participants, but it’s one of the best apps to monitor social media chats.

It supports pretty much any popular social media platform, including Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. This lets you have a complete overview of the target phone’s social media activity, even if they use some more niche apps.

It can also monitor dating apps like Tinder and Bumble and will let you know if they’re installed in the first place. This is perfect for worried parents concerned their child will join the ranks of a growing number of teens on dating apps.

Since uMobix lets you restrict or ban certain apps remotely, you can react immediately after a dating app is downloaded. Alternatively, with informed consent, this feature can be a great help in recovering trust in a relationship.

As one of the best geofencing apps, uMobix has excellent GPS tracking capabilities, as well as geofencing, to help you ensure the target phone is where it’s supposed to be.

Not only does this help with monitoring kids and getting your phone back if it’s stolen, but it’ll also help you find your own phone if you lose it. If uMobix sounds like the text message spy app for you, take advantage of its 14-day guarantee to try it for free today.

4. Cocospy — Best Text Message Spy App for Ease of Use

Cocospy is the best text message spy app for you if you’re looking for an app that’ll be incredibly simple whilst maintaining enough functionality for a high-quality SMS monitoring experience.

One of Cocospy’s biggest standout features is that you can install it remotely on iOS. All you need to do to set up text message spying is input the target phone’s iCloud credentials.

It also works on Android, although there’s no similar feature there. This can be a lifesaver in situations where you can’t get access to the target phone.

Cocospy’s dashboard will show you all the target phone’s text messages. It allows you to read all incoming and outgoing messages as well as MMS content, like videos and photos. This lets you always keep on top of your child’s texts- and the app even runs in stealth mode by default.

As one of the best phone spy apps across the board, Cocospy is packed with other useful features such as call and SMS statistics breakdown. These let you see who your child is contacting and how often, whether it be by call or via text.

This can be extremely helpful in protecting your child against predators and other online threats. You can try Cocospy for free today with its 14-day money-back guarantee.

5. Spyic — Best Spy App to Read Text Messages in Terms of a Money-Back Guarantee

Spyic might be the best cell phone text message spy software for you if you’re looking for something you can try out for a little longer than the standard 2 weeks.

In fact, Spyic is so confident in their product that their money-back guarantee is not 2 weeks, not 1 month, but a whopping 60 days. This lets you experience every facility of the app before you decide whether it’s actually worth your money.

And in our testing, this confidence is warranted.

The app will show you all SMS messages(even deleted content) as well as any multimedia files that were shared. Alongside that, you’ll be able to see timestamps, as well as the names and phone numbers of everyone involved in the conversation.

This is perfect for protecting your children against encountering inappropriate content in the wild. The app will also show you statistics like your child’s most recent calls, most common calls/texts, internet browser bookmarks, and more.

This can help you figure out if something’s going on, as well as give you a better insight into who your child’s talking to. Unsure? You can give Spyic’s exorbitant 60-day money-back guarantee a shot down below.

6. HoverWatch — Best Text Message Spy App for Businesses

Hoverwatch is the best text message tracking software for businesses looking to track their employees and ensure theft doesn’t occur on your premises. The app automatically operates in stealth mode and spies on all text messages sent or received on the devices.

It also takes periodic screenshots, so even if something inappropriate is going on in an in-house app, you’ll be able to catch it with Hoverwatch. It’ll also track browser history so you can rest easy knowing your employees are working and not spending time online.

Hoverwatch is one of the few spy apps capable of monitoring macOS and Windows computers. This lets you keep tabs on your employee’s communication and online activities regardless of what platform they’re using.

This helps to give you a holistic monitoring experience within a single app.

The precise geo-fencing and GPS tracking feature also helps you protect expensive phones and laptops from theft. Alternatively, it can help you find forgotten or lost devices within minutes of turning on the app.

They even have a business plan meant to make this more affordable. Plus, there’s a free version, which is possibly the best SMS spy app for Android free, and you can try it out down below.

7. XNSpy — Best Spy App to Read Text Messages for Remote Control

XNSpy is the best text message spy app for you if you’re looking for a high-power app with remote control features. The app lets you remotely record calls, surroundings, or social media screen activity with ease.

This lets you rest easy knowing you can always set up a recording if you deem it necessary. You can also take more drastic measures remotely, whether it be:

These remote control features make it perfect for parents and lone users alike.

As one of the best text message tracking software, XNSpy will show you where the target phone was when a text was received/sent, how much time elapsed between messages, as well as the contact details of both participants.

If you’re looking to try it out, XNSpy offers a 10-day money-back guarantee.

8. TheOneSpy — Deep Features With Room to Grow

TheOneSpy is one of the best text message spy apps for those of us looking for advanced, sophisticated spying features.

Not only does it feature time-stamped text messages with in-depth data on who sent the text, when, and from where, but it also has a keylogger for you to be alerted when certain phrases are used.

This lets you react immediately if your child is doing something they shouldn’t. You can also set up advanced web filters that will allow you to curate and monitor the content that your child can see online.

With this, inappropriate or dangerous content has never been easier to find; this feature is indispensable. The app also packs a solid suite of advanced features. From in-app screenshots and screen records to recording calls (even VoIP ones) with ease.

If you’re looking for a deep spy app that rewards you for learning how to use it, try TheOneSpy using its 14-day money-back guarantee.

9. Qustodio — Best Text Message Spy App for Internet Control

Qustodio is the best text message spy app for you if you’re looking for an easy-to-use app that’ll give you almost unparalleled internet control. The parent-oriented app stands out on the back of its internet control features.

With kids spending more and more time online, it’s crucial to have the ability to restrict what they can search for. On top of this, Qustodio lets you block games, sites, or apps in addition to letting you monitor their browsing history, YouTube use, and more.

Qustodio also does a lot to streamline the monitoring process, giving you weekly and monthly reports on your child’s online activity via email. This means you don’t even have to engage with the app itself to know exactly what your child is doing.

On the texting side of things, the app does an excellent job of monitoring everything that’s being written. If you find a malicious number, you can even outright block it remotely and stop your child from contacting them.

If this sounds like the app for you, you can take advantage of their 30-day money-back guarantee to try it for free.

10. KidsGuard — Easy Social Media Monitoring With Call Recording

KidsGuard is an extremely user-friendly parental control app with some advanced features.

Being made specifically to monitor kids, special care was given to being able to monitor texts. Not only this, but it’ll also monitor a wide range of social media sites, including the newer ones like Discord. This gives you a complete overview of your child’s texting.

Outside of this, there are remote control and dating app monitoring features. If you’re afraid of your child downloading or using an app like Tinder for the wrong reasons, you can monitor their activity and stop it at any time.

Finally, KidsGuard provides you with some easy-to-use remote control features like call recording, screen recording, and remote screenshots that help you maintain a holistic overview of all of your child’s phone activity.

If this sounds like the app for you, give it a shot with its 30-day money-back guarantee down below.

Best Text Spy Apps | Compared

With ample options, choosing one that best suits your requirements can be hard without a head-to-head comparison. Now that you’ve learned the ins and outs of each one, here’s a handy table to help you narrow down your options:

How We Chose the Best Text Message Spy Apps

There’s a lot that goes into deciding where the line for being the best spy app to see text messages should be.

However, we’ve done our best to compare all of these apps under equal conditions at some of the most common tasks users will need them to complete, such as:

And more. From there, we’ve narrowed down a set of criteria we used to rank these apps. The main factors that affected our rankings are:

And more

How to Set Up a Text Message Spy App

Now, let’s look at how to install and use the best spy app to see text messages — mSpy. Here we’ll be looking at Android, although the process is similar on iOS as well.

1. Go to the mSpy Website

Click on the button below and press “Try Now” to begin the account creation process. Here, you’ll want to pick the monitored device’s OS and your desired subscription plan.

When you’re done with that, an email should arrive from mSpy with your new Username, Password, Installation URL, and Control Panel link. Make sure to save it.

2. Turn Off Play Protect

Play Protect stops you from downloading apps like mSpy, so we’ll need to disable it on the target phone. Navigate to the Play Store settings and tick off “Improve harmful app detection,” like in the image below.

3. Download mSpy

Open Google Chrome or a different web browser, then paste in the Installation URL from the mSpy email. Next, you’ll want to accept all permissions and navigate through the installation wizard. In the end, simply click “Complete Installation.”

Finally, go to your device and paste in your Control Panel URL; using your password and username to log in will take you to your dashboard to let you start spying in real-time.

On iOS, the process is fairly similar. The only big difference is that you’ll need to download and install Cydia on the target phone and put in the installation link there.

Spy App FAQs