abandoned?

[Steve-CCity]

I'm wondering if anyone is working on keeping this app working. Seems like maybe it's been abandoned, which would be sad, it's such a great message tool.

If so, thoughts on alternatives?

[Chloe-H]

Wondering the same thing. Literally looked up this today. I'd really rather not leave QKSMS behind, though...it's been a good app. I just want support for MMS backups/transfers and I'll be happy!

[Chloe-H]

Quick update: I've been dipping my toes into Textra, and I like it a lot. Scheduled messages, pinned conversations, custom conversation names, highly customizable colors and behavior. It even has the per-contact color customization options that QKSMS has. Between that and using Synctech's SMS Backup & Restore app to transfer SMS and MMS messages from my previous phone, I'm pretty happy.

The only other texting app I was even considering from the article I linked was Mood Messenger, since it is also listed as having a lot of features I care about and seems to be privacy-focused.

[Steve-CCity]

Thanks @Chloe-H I tried both Textra & Mood and went back to QKSMS. Neither of them worked better for me. My issues with QKSMS are pretty minor. It works reliably for me. I would just like to be able to Name Group Convos and Customize Group Notifications. And, of course wish that it was not abandoned : )

[87113]

Hi, just to say that both are not opensource so for me it's not an option, but thank's for sharing.

I hope that qksms is not dead ;)

[random-pixels]

Just got an updated phone and was really disappointed by the new stock SMS apps; finally settled on QKSMS only to find it seems abandoned - no releases for 2.5 years now :(

UPDATE: There are newer versions on F-Droid. A version was added in January which is somehow three times the size of the previous release.

Apparently it's only a pre-release version, but.. maybe there is hope that a new version will eventually come out? :crossed_fingers:

I installed the updated pre-release version and it seems to work well (Android 13). So for those of you willing to install the .apk rather than go through the Play Store, this should work for you and at least it's less than a year old. Sadly it does not have the features I want and I am not hopeful that they will be added if I submit a feature request, so I won't be keeping it.

@Chloe-H Thanks for the recommendation for Textra! I looked into it and it seems like a good alternative, albeit closed source. At least the paid option is a one-time fee and not a subscription (at least as of a few years ago based on the reviews I could find). Please correct me if I am wrong.

Questions: does Textra allow to configure timestamps to display on every single message (Update: found answer: no), and also, does it allow to configure a sound notification for a new message even when the app is open (Update: found answer: yes)? Most times I set the phone down after sending a text and don't get notified of the reply since the app is still open. These are the only 2 features missing from the the stock apps that I could not determine if Textra has or not.

It seems documentation for SMS apps in general is quite lacking.

@87113 You can look into Partisan SMS, it is a fork of QKSMS and is open source that uses encryption. I don't know if it's on the Play Store. If not, you can try the pre-release 3.10.1 version I linked to above.

[Steve-CCity]

After trying Textra and Mood I went back to QKSMS then noticed what @random-pixels said about the latest Version - 3.10.1 being Pre- release, then I remembered one time loading up a prior version just to be able to name my Group Convos and then updating again. Realized now that maybe the older version - 3.94 might be the one to use - since it worked fine. So - I reverted back and boom - I can both Name Group Convos and Customize Group Notifications. I'm thinking that these problems with the newer PreRelease versions are why they are still PreRelease - duh.

[Skilly146]

I have also been using the second most recent version 3.9.4 and haven't had any issues yet. Obviously won't work forever, but hopefully it will work until I can find an alternative or this project gets restarted

[002gRTEah3mRYH]

She should fork.. that's a good app but MMS not working for me

[adamhotep]

See also #1964 (which has no responses), in which the poster claims the author is not responding to email either.

[tcecyk]

@random-pixels

which is somehow three times the size of the previous release.

was curious, that is in part due to the bundled librealm-jni.so getting bigger. realm.io is the on-device database used inside qksms

[mddvul22]

I've been using QKSMS for about 4 years. Development has definitely slowed. In the last year bugs have started creeping in to the application. For example, if I go into my gallery and select an image and share it via QKSMS, I can't select who to send the image to. In the place where I would select the person, it shows //media/external/imag... The only way that I can send an image via SMS is to start the text message to the person, and then click on the + symbol and choose the option to attach a photo. Going the other way no longer works for me.

Nevertheless, I'm afraid that there won't be much more development work on QKSMS. SMS is dying, probably to be replacing with either RCS or MLS. Hopefully that future will include some open source applications. But, there really needs to be some standardization. The future looks dim for texting. I don't want a future where I have to have Facebook Messenger, Google Messages, WhatsApp, Signal and a broken SMS app all installed to be able to communicate with everybody.

I'm a Lineage for Microg user. If I have to move to Google Messages in the future, I'll have to move to regular Lineage with Gapps, which seems awful to me. The problems with QKSMS are such that a few months ago I moved to the AOSP messaging app. I used it for several weeks and then I just stopped receiving SMS messages with it. That was a major failure and I moved back to QKSMS. At this point, I suppose I'm stuck using QKSMS and will limp along with it until the future texting landscape settles into some kind of order.

Personally, I don't mind @moezbhatti moving on. However, I do wish that they would at least comment on what is going on, and/or offer to hand over maintenance to somebody else.

[Steve-CCity]

Thanks for your thoughtful comment @mddvul22 . I learned a lot of things that I did not know before from reading it.

[fallsdevil]

I saw this app on a foss list, apparently this app has a 'replacement' I just downloaded this one Partisan SMS and it has a recent update from May, and in the app in the settings the same name appears QKSMS I found this interesting and I saw that some of you are looking for alternatives so I decided to make this comment...

[random-pixels]

I saw this app on a foss list, apparently this app has a 'replacement' I just downloaded this one Partisan SMS and it has a recent update from May, and in the app in the settings the same name appears QKSMS I found this interesting and I saw that some of you are looking for alternatives so I decided to make this comment...

Yep, as I mentioned above, Partisan is a fork of QKSMS that uses encryption. Good to know it's still maintained.

[Dyras]

Sadly, the Partisan SMS fork also seems to be abandoned. See: https://github.com/wrwrabbit/Partisan-SMS/issues/34

[mddvul22]

If you want an open source, currently supported, SMS app, I've moved to Simple Mobile Tools SMS Messenger. It is on F-Droid and in the Google Play store.

[KaKi87]

@octoshrimpy What about your fork ? Are you still planning on maintaining it ? If yes, would you enable issues on it ? Thanks

[87113]

This is another fork of qksms : https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/Message looks like it's maintained by the eOS team.

[KaKi87]

Would they accept feature requests though ? 🤔

[87113]

I have no idea. I can say that I use eOS and this app 'Message' on my phone and it's working for me. :)

[KaKi87]

How did you download it ? I can't even find an APK. 😅

[87113]

How did you download it ? I can't even find an APK. 😅

Ho! 🧐🧐🧐

It's installed by default in eOS. Maybe they don't provide public apk!? I don't know.

[KaKi87]

Well then most of QKSMS users, who aren't using that ROM, can't install it, therefore it's not an actionable fork.

[87113]

Hi, actually you can find the apk there : https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/Message/-/artifacts

[adamhotep]

Hi, actually you can find the apk there : https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/Message/-/artifacts

Yes, but if you install it directly, you won't get security updates and bugfixes. That's why it would be ideally included in F-Droid and/or Google Play (in addition to whatever /e/OS uses).

[KaKi87]

Actually, even just uploading APKs to the git releases page would be fine thanks to Obtainium, but not only the CI dowloads can't be automated but the APK inside these ZIPs can't even be installed because of being unsigned.

[alekksander]

just tried that efoundation fork. nothing seems different comparing to qksms. what's the point?

[Dyras]

@alekksander The point is that if there is ever a security hole in QKSMS it's never getting fixed.

Also, the API level will never increase so QKSMS will never have new security features.

[adamhotep]

Actually, even just uploading APKs to the git releases page would be fine thanks to Obtainium, but not only the CI dowloads can't be automated but the APK inside these ZIPs can't even be installed because of being unsigned.

Obtainium is neat, but the /e/OS Messages app doesn't have any releases and (as you note) the artifacts are archives with unsigned APKs.

[octoshrimpy]

@octoshrimpy What about your fork ? Are you still planning on maintaining it ? If yes, would you enable issues on it ? Thanks

I would be down for it! I forked for the heck of it, in case, but I'm def down to help keep a maintained fork, but am gonna need help :)

opening up issues and PRs

[Dyras]

@octoshrimpy Any chance you could fork the eOS Messages app and just make that easily downloadable on non-eOS phones? I think that would be the easiest way of keeping the project alive without too much maintaining from your side. I'd happily be a beta tester if needed.

[octoshrimpy]

@octoshrimpy Any chance you could fork the eOS Messages app and just make that easily downloadable on non-eOS phones? I think that would be the easiest way of keeping the project alive without too much maintaining from your side. I'd happily be a beta tester if needed.

if you'd like to fork eOs Messages and merge into Quik, i'll accept PRs and start learning how to compile it all.

[Dyras]

@octoshrimpy I sadly lack the skills of forking an Android app, but I'd happily help out with testing etc. I'm probably not alone. Maybe ask around at Privacy Guides, etc and see if someone else is up to the challenge?

Heck, maybe contact eOS and link them here and tell them there's interest in using their app?

[Joeviocoe]

Looks to be abandoned. Recommending users uninstall and use something else.

[upbox-org]

For the adventurous: there is also "Deku SMS" available at F-Droid. https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/com.afkanerd.deku/ https://github.com/deku-messaging/Deku-SMS-Android It's pretty new and focused on encryption. The devs describe it as "feature-rich" but I think it's minimalistic.

I'll also go with: https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.smsmessenger/ Got almost all features I need and is developed by a well known dev who is active for years in the OSS community.

[alekksander]

For the adventurous: there is also "Deku SMS" available at F-Droid.

sadly it lacks nearly everything and currently the only feature is encryption. not a substitute to qksms, at least not yet.

For the adventurous: there is also "Deku SMS" available at F-Droid. https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/com.afkanerd.deku/ https://github.com/deku-messaging/Deku-SMS-Android It's pretty new and focused on encryption. The devs describe it as "feature-rich" but I think it's minimalistic.

I'll also go with: https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.smsmessenger/ Got almost all features I need and is developed by a well known dev who is active for years in the OSS community.

this one is good, but still misses few features to actually compete with qksms. development is ongoing, but slow. my suspicion is that dev is focusing on other apps rather than messaging one.

[octoshrimpy]

I managed to compile my fork quik last night, after merging a few PRs for bugfixes (like the spaces in search freeze app)

I have not managed to get github actions to build the APK, but it does compile locally. That's next on my to-learn list.

[octoshrimpy]

Quik is now up to date, compiling proper releases, as well as has a few bug fixes. spaces in search no longer crash, you can delete scheduled messages, all QK+ features enabled, and the next milestone is a revamp over scheduled messages, so you can see them inside the conversation before they send.

I'm very new to android dev, so any help would be appreciated :)

[KaKi87]

Could you please sign the APKs ? Thanks

[octoshrimpy]

Could you please sign the APKs ? Thanks

First time doing this, but I think I got it working.

https://github.com/octoshrimpy/quik/releases/tag/v4.0.5

let me know?

[KaKi87]

Looks good !

[Joeviocoe]

I managed to compile my fork quik last night, after merging a few PRs for bugfixes (like the spaces in search freeze app)

I have not managed to get github actions to build the APK, but it does compile locally. That's next on my to-learn list.

Since this is a fork, we should still consider the moezbhatti/qksms abandoned and move discussion of the octoshrimpy fork to its own github project. @Steve-CCity can close this issue.

[alekksander]

@octoshrimpy Thanks for the fork, looks promising. If You plan to add message encryption, then partisan is probably worthy looking at. Also please consider implementing „material you” for a fresh visual start.

[mddvul22]

Earlier in this thread, I mentioned that I had moved to Simple Mobile Tools SMS Messenger, which was being actively developed and was in F-Droid. However, the useful future of that app is seriously in doubt. The developer of that app has just sold it to a company known for putting spyware and adware into their apps. If you want to read a humorous/interesting thread, see here:

https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issues/241

It looks like another one of the developers of that app has now forked it. The future of open source SMS apps continues to be very unstable.

[Dyras]

Here's a link to the SMT forks mentioned in the post above: https://github.com/FossifyOrg

[KaKi87]

Wow, they moved fast. Nobody even knows whether the buyer will actually do what people fear they would do.

[Dyras]

Well the developer pulling this sale out of the blue ruined any and all cred he had in the FOSS industry in many eyes. It's only natural that we see an unofficial continuation even if he backs out of the sale or something similar.

[KaKi87]

Actually I assumed that it would go through, what I meant is nobody knows whether the future owner will actually add ads and/or malware into the apps.

[RunningDroid]

nobody knows whether the future owner will actually add ads

They're already saying they've added ads: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplemobiletools.smsmessenger

[KaKi87]

Mea culpa.

I see "added trial" in changelogs and "pro" versions as well. :/

Fossify actually isn't moving fast enough then, because users are getting those updates and can't switch as it seems these forks aren't distributed anywhere yet.