Best Text Message Spy Apps for 2025 | Top 10 Reviewed

With one of the best text message spy apps, you’ll be able to monitor the SMS messages sent and received from your child’s or employee’s phone. Beyond SMSes, the market’s leading spy tools give you insight into all the activity happening across apps on the target device.

With that said, finding the best text message spy app is no easy task. To help, we’ve sourced, ranked, reviewed, and compared the cream of the crop for SMS message spying — from the almighty mSpy through to EyeZy and uMobix; here’s what these leading solutions can do for you.

mSpy - Best Phone Tracker

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• 180 Countries Supported
• Keylogger, Screen Recorder
• Monitor GPS Locations
• Parental Control for Peace of Mind

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The Top Text Message Spy Apps for 2025 | Reviewed

To help you discover which of the market’s top 10 best suits your needs, we’ve reviewed them in-depth below. We explore each one’s key capabilities and standout features, pricing, pros and cons, and more.

Let’s dive right in.

1. mSpy – Overall Best Text Message Spy App for 2025

mSpy is our #1 pick as the best app to spy on text messages in 2025. Plus, it’s also one of the best parental control apps in the industry. This app is loaded with capabilities and can display messages on either iPhone or Android devices.

And on top of this, it also spies on social media messages across platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, Snapchat, and more. On iPhone, mSpy can even spy on encrypted iMessages.

There are 2 features that help mSpy really stand above the competition. The first is its keystroke logger, which captures everything a user types on their phone.

That includes not only messages but also browser searches, social media messages, and more. With every logged keystroke, mSpy maps the text to the app where it was entered.

This is incredibly valuable to learn the target user’s interests, plus whether they’re engaging with inappropriate content and if you need to be concerned with any of their online activity.

In fact, with mSpy, you can even set up keyword alerts and get notified if the user types in words like “pornography,” “drugs,” or “suicide” to ensure that you never miss anything of importance.

The other feature that we love in mSpy is the screen recorder. This enables you to monitor a target phone’s activity in real-time. So, you can see how long a message took to type, whether the content was deleted and replaced, and so much more.

Very few phone spy apps can match this level of real-time monitoring.

mSpy is reasonably priced for an annual plan at $199.92 per year ($16.66 per month) for one iPhone or Android device. The company also offers a one-month plan for $69.99. mSpy includes a 14-day money-back guarantee for all users.

2. EyeZy – Best Text Message Spy App with Keystroke Logger

EyeZy is another excellent text message spy tool that, like mSpy, offers a keystroke logger. This enables you to see everything that is typed on a target phone, whether it’s actually sent or simply deleted without being delivered.

What’s great about this spy app is that it does more than just show you what’s being typed. It can also send alerts when specific keywords are detected, which is very useful for keeping an eye on teenagers or references to a specific person.

In addition, EyeZy can even be used to prevent a text message from being sent if it contains inappropriate content.

EyeZy works across text messages, iMessages, and social media messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and it can also display photos and other multimedia that are contained in a user’s text message history.

EyeZy costs $119.88 per year (a mere $9.99 per month) for a single iPhone or Android device, which is very competitive pricing for a spy app with so many monitoring features and makes this one of the best phone spy apps for Android.

The app also comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee.

3. uMobix – Spy on Social Media Messaging

uMobix is our top pick for keeping tabs on a user’s social media messaging.

The complete list of social media apps that uMobix can monitor includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Tinder, WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, WeChat, Google Duo, Line, Hangouts, Skype, and Kik.

Besides this, uMobix is one of the few tracking apps that can monitor messaging in dating apps like Tinder and Bumble.

With uMobix, you can monitor every aspect of messaging, from what’s being said to who is involved in a conversation. The app enables you to see all contacts on a target phone and delivers real-time alerts for new text messages and social media messages.

uMobix also has a built-in keystroke logger, although there is no screen recording capability with this spy app. You also have some basic remote control options, including the ability to limit screen time or restrict specific messaging apps without warning.

uMobix costs $49.99 per month or $139.92 per year ($11.66 per month), so it’s not cheap. However, the wide range of features, and particularly its ability to monitor almost any social media messaging app, makes the price well worthwhile.

4. Cocospy – Top Text Message Spy Tool for iPhone

Cocospy is one of the best text message spy tools for iPhone users because it’s one of the few apps that doesn’t require physical access to the target device.

You only need a target phone’s iCloud login credentials to install Cocospy remotely. Cocospy also works on Android devices, but physical access to the target device is required.

Cocospy also has plenty of features for spying on text messages and iMessages. The software can read all incoming and outgoing messages, plus display MMS content like photos and videos. It can also track a phone’s location and message timestamps, enabling you to find out exactly where a target phone was when a message was sent or received.

This app doesn’t include a keystroke logger, but that’s hardly an issue since it can also spy on most social media messaging apps. Cocospy delivers messages from Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Snapchat, and more. The app operates in stealth mode by default, so targeted users won’t know when someone is checking their messages.

Cocospy costs $150 per year ($12.50 per month) for 1 device. In addition to credit and debit cards, Cocospy accepts cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, for payment to help you remain anonymous.

WARNING: There is a fake site set up to mimic Cocospy and scam people looking to use its services. Please DO NOT use the cocospy.com version of the site for your own security, and only use cocospy.org.

5. XNSpy – Text Message Spy Software with Geo-Tagging

XNSpy is a text spy software for iOS and Android that combines message tracking with location tracking capabilities and more.

You can see not only what was said in a text conversation but also where a user was at the time and how much time elapsed between incoming and outgoing messages.

The level of detail available in XNSpy makes it easier to gauge a user’s frame of mind while participating in a conversation.

Another thing we like about XNSpy is that you can set up keyword- and phrase-based alerts. This saves you from the hassle of reading through every message and instead enables them to focus on only the messages that may contain concerning content.

Alerts apply not only to text messages but also to social media messages across platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The app also enables you to monitor email, whether the target is using Gmail or an employer-based email client on their phone.

XNSpy backs up its text message spy tools with 24/7 customer support, available by email and live chat. New users can also take the app for a test drive with a live demo before committing to it.

XNSpy costs $49.99 per month or $119.88 per year.

6. Spyic – Best Messaging Spy App for Families

Spyic is our top pick for families in search of text message spy tools for monitoring children. This app works on both iOS and Android devices and can monitor SMS messages, MMS content, social media messages, and more.

It also includes details about the people involved in every conversation, such as their names and phone numbers.

Spyic is very easy to use and has a few helpful tricks up its sleeve, including geofence alerts. This enables you to see what messages a target phone is sending when it’s in an area where it’s not supposed to be. The app also offers SIM tracking, enabling you to pair conversations with location data even without setting up geofences.

Spyic offers inexpensive family plans that cost $199.99 per year for Android phones or $399.99 per year for iPhones. The Android plan covers 3 phones, while the iPhone plan covers 5 phones. Unfortunately, you cannot mix and match Android and iOS devices without purchasing separate plans.

7. Mobile Tracker – Budget-friendly Text Spy App

Mobile Tracker is a budget-friendly text message spy app that starts at just $5.99 per month – making it one of the cheapest apps in our round-up.

Despite the low cost, Mobile Tracker does everything most users need from a spy app. It can deliver sent and received text messages, monitor social media messaging apps, and more.

The main limitation we found with Mobile Tracker is that it doesn’t support the same range of social media apps as competing spy apps. For example, you will find only minimal insight into apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. Unfortunately, Mobile Tracker doesn’t feature a built-in keystroke logger to help you monitor conversations in apps that aren’t directly supported.

Despite this shortcoming, Mobile Tracker is worth a look. The app’s online dashboard is easy to use, and the app enables you to take remote control of a target phone, including restricting the usage of some messaging-related apps.

8. Hoverwatch – Best Text Message Spy App for Businesses

Hoverwatch is our top pick for employers that want to monitor the conversations employees are having on their work phones.

The Hoverwatch app operates in stealth mode and can monitor all text messages sent and received by an iOS or Android device. That includes SMS messages and social media messages. The app also tracks browser history.

What’s great about Hoverwatch is that it can also be installed on Mac and Windows computers. This means that employers can easily monitor all of an employee’s communications regardless of what work devices they’re using at any time. The result is a more unified picture than many phone-only spy apps provide.

Hoverwatch also records location information and can take screenshots on Android phones. So, employers can determine where their employees are when sending messages – a particularly useful feature for employers who frequently use messages to check in with their employees.

Hoverwatch costs $99.95 per year for a single device. A business plan, which supports up to 25 devices, costs $499.95.

9. Spyera – Auto-delete Keywords from Text Messages

Spyera is a comprehensive text message-spying app for iOS and Android.

It’s packed with features for monitoring messages across a wide range of apps, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Viber, Telegram, Signal, and more. It can also read messages in dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble, plus emails from clients like Gmail.

One of the unique features of Spyera is its ability to automatically remove targeted keywords from messages before they are sent. You can specify what words or phrases should be automatically removed, and the recipient will never know there’s something missing from the message they receive. This feature can be hard to use, however, since messages sometimes end up garbled with only specific keywords missing.

Spyera also offers useful features like a built-in keystroke logger, location tracking tools, and automatic screenshots. It also gives you the ability to remotely block apps or limit screen time for messaging apps.

Spyera is somewhat pricey, with plans for a single iPhone or Android costing $389 per year ($32 per month).

However, what really sets Spyera apart is the range of devices that can be monitored. With the $479 per year (which translates to $40 per month) all-in-one plan, you’ll be able to track a smartphone, tablet, and computer usage for a comprehensive overview of everything your child or partner (with their consent) is up to.

10. iKeyMonitor – Best Free Text Message Spy App

iKeyMonitor is one of the best apps to spy on text messages for free in 2025. With iKeyMonitor’s free plan, you can read all incoming and outgoing text messages on a target phone as well as view contacts, calendar events, and notes.

Plus, you can also see a phone’s GPS location at the time messages are sent and received.

Importantly, iKeyMonitor doesn’t offer monitoring of social media apps for free. The app supports monitoring for a wide range of messaging apps, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and more, but this requires a premium plan that costs $16.66 per month. The premium plan also adds a keystroke logger, email monitoring, and screenshot captures.

iKeyMonitor’s mobile app is easy to use and the target phone client operates in stealth mode, so it’s harder to detect. The premium plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it out and revert to the free plan if they find that the additional features aren’t necessary.

Best Spy Apps for Spying on Text Messages Compared

Are you still deciding between the best text message spy apps? We put together the table below to compare compatible operating systems and prices:

How Do Text Message Spy Apps Work?

Text message spy apps work by giving a user access to all incoming and outgoing text messages on a target phone. These apps simply record all message data, enabling a user to view conversations as if they were texting a friend or colleague on their own phone.

You can see when messages were sent and received, who is involved in the conversation, and even the location of the target phone at the time. Most spy apps have a mobile monitoring app as well as a monitoring dashboard, and some even offer alerts for new messages or specific keywords.

Importantly, many top text message spy apps do more than simply reveal the contents of SMS messages. They can also enable spying on MMS content, like photos and videos, social media messages, and browser searches. Some even have a keyboard logger, enabling you to see messages that are typed but not actually sent.

Text message spy apps must be installed on the target phone. This typically requires physical access to the target phone, although some iPhone spy apps like Cocospy can be installed from the cloud. Once installed, they operate in the background and are designed to be hard for anyone using the target phone to detect without specialized software, such as antivirus software.

Are Text Message Phone Spy Apps Safe?

Most text message phone spy apps use encryption to keep data safe and secure. Only the user of the spy app can see the messages that are being sent or received from a target phone, and this data is not shared with third parties.

However, the market certainly has no shortage of unsafe scams that put the device and the user’s data at risk. On the whole, this risk is predominantly with completely free spy apps. We’d recommend being cautious around spy apps that advertise themselves as completely free.

Keep in mind that in most cases, users must have the permission of a phone’s owner in order to legally install a phone spy app. With that said, permission is not required to install a spy app on the phone of a child who is under 18 or on the phones of employees in the case that the employer pays for the phones.

Free Spy Apps for Text Messages

There are many free text message spy apps that promise to monitor incoming and outgoing messages on a target phone. While free might sound too good to pass up, it’s important to keep in mind that free apps have many limitations.

For one thing, free apps typically only capture SMS messages. They may not be able to monitor MMS content, such as photos and videos, or encrypted messages like iMessages. They also may not monitor other messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, or other social apps where text conversations take place.

As a result, it’s worth paying for a premium text message phone spy app to get a full picture of a target user’s conversations. These apps have a much wider range of features and can capture all text messages, regardless of what format they’re in or what apps they happen in.

How to Use a Text Message Spy App

Ready to get started with the best text message spy app in 2025? We’ll walk through the process to set up mSpy on a target phone.

With that said, all spy apps have a very similar installation process.

Step 1 — Sign Up for mSpy

To get started with mSpy, head to the app’s website and sign up for a monthly or annual plan. Click Try Now, then enter an email address.

Select whether to monitor an iOS or Android device, then purchase a plan using a credit card or debit card. mSpy’s software will be delivered to the email address entered earlier once payment is made.

Step 2 — Install mSpy

With the software in hand, the next step is to install mSpy on the target phone. This requires that you have physical access to the target device.

Download the mSpy software onto the target phone, then log into mSpy to activate the app. It will automatically begin the installation process. Be sure to allow mSpy all the permissions it requests during the installation to ensure it has full access to messaging apps on the target phone.

Step 3 — Monitor Messages

Now that mSpy is installed, it should begin tracking text messages on the target device automatically. You can see all incoming and outgoing messages on your dashboard by logging in on mSpy’s website.

Spy App FAQs

Can you spy on someone’s text message?

Text message spy apps like mSpy enable you to spy on incoming and outgoing SMS messages from a target phone. They can also monitor iMessages and messages on social media apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

What is the best app to spy on someone’s text message?

We think mSpy is the overall best text message spy app in 2025. It’s affordably priced and offers a keyboard logger, screen recordings, and support for a wide range of popular social messaging apps.

Can text message spy apps be detected?

Text message spy apps are designed to operate with stealth. They don’t have an app icon on the target phone and don’t show up in most places a user might look. That said, there is software that can detect spy apps that are running on a device.

Are these spy applications legal?

The legality of spy apps relies on just one thing — consent. Unless you’re monitoring your child’s online activity, you’ll need explicit consent from the individual. For this reason, these are popular parental control apps and are even widespread in the corporate world to monitor the activity of employees on work mobile devices and PCs.

Can I track my partner’s phone without permission?

Although these apps are incredibly popular for spying on partners to find out whether they’re being unfaithful or not, this isn’t within the law and can land you in serious trouble. As we mentioned before, unless you’re given consent, using a message spying app on someone who is unaware, is not legal.

Conclusion — What’s the Best Text Message Spy App?

The best text message spy apps make it simple to discreetly monitor a spouse’s, child’s, or employee’s conversations. Here’s our top 10:

1. mSpy – Overall Best Text Message Spy App for 2025 | Take Advantage of the 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee!
2. EyeZy – Best Text Message Spy App with Keystroke Logger and a 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
3. uMobix – Spy on Social Media Messaging With a Risk-Free 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
4. Cocospy – Top Text Message Spy Tool for iPhone, try the 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
5. XNSpy – Text Message Spy Software with Geo-Tagging and a 10-Day Money-Back Guarantee
6. Spyic – Best Messaging Spy App for Families, Comes With a Huge 60-Day Money-Back Guarantee
7. Mobile Tracker – Budget-friendly Text Spy App, Starts at Just $5.99 per month
8. Hoverwatch – Best Text Message Spy App for Businesses | Offers Free Sign-Up
9. Spyera – Auto-Delete Keywords from Text Messages, try the 10-Day Money-Back Guarantee
10. iKeyMonitor – Best Free Text Message Spy App, Start Tracking for Free

We recommend mSpy as the overall best text spy app in 2025 thanks to its support for a wide range of social messaging apps, built-in keyboard logger, and screen recording tool. Sign up for mSpy today to start spying on conversations with ease.

mSpy - Best Phone Tracker

Our Rating

• 180 Countries Supported
• Keylogger, Screen Recorder
• Monitor GPS Locations
• Parental Control for Peace of Mind

Visit Site

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