Do you want to track the activities of smartphones of family members, employees, students, focus groups, and more? Are you looking for the best spy app for android without access to the target phone? Read on to learn the truth about spying apps without access to a target phone.
Smartphone spying is increasing rapidly. Big tech companies like Google and Facebook are already spying on your smartphone to deliver relevant content, ads, entertainment services, etc. However, spying on an individual’s mobile phone by using spying apps to track all the activities happening on the target phone is huge.
Are there really any smartphone or computer applications that let you spy on someone’s phone without accessing the target phone? Do smartphone spying apps really work? What are some of the reliable spy apps for smartphones? Read on to find the best answers below.
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Reasons to Use Spy Apps for Android Without Access to the Target Phone
Before you know spy apps that work without any access to the target phone, you must find out why you need such apps. Find some compelling reasons here:
- You want your kids and minor children to use smartphones to expose them to the latest technological advancements. But you don’t want them to expose themselves to online content not made for kids or minors. Furthermore, you don’t want to intervene when the kid is using a smartphone and stop them from accessing things they shouldn’t. Here, remote monitoring or spying is acceptable.
- You must track your friends, family members, or colleagues using their mobile phone GPS in case they’re missing or lost for more than 24 hours. In this scenario, you may need to rely on one of the best spy apps for android without access to the target phone.
- You met someone online or in a coffee shop and thinking to take the relationship to the next level. You’re also concerned about their background and may want to monitor their smartphone activity to uncover if the person is cheating or not.
- Mobile spying app without access to the target phone is tremendously useful in workplaces. Being an employer, you can track your field and on-site employees and find out if they’re utilizing their workday productively or not.
Related reading: Can Microsoft Teams Be Used to Spy on You?
Spy Apps for Android Without Access to the Target Phone: A Myth
You might see many online articles and product reviews claiming boldly that the apps help you track someone else’s mobile phone remotely. These apps mostly claim that you just need to pay for a package and provide a few details about the target phone.
Then, the app will reveal all critical information about the target mobile like text messages, WhatsApp conversations, Messenger chats, phonebook contacts, phone call records, internal storage content, and a lot more.
Here, you must take a step back and think wouldn’t that be a serious violation of privacy rights? Wouldn’t there be a chaotic situation around you if everyone can pay a few dollars and spy on anyone?
The truth is there are no such apps that give you this much of capabilities to spy on someone else’s mobile phone without access to the target phone. Mobile app developers, their resellers, and other entities that claim this are simply trying to use your concerning emotion against you to make a few dollars.
World’s most notorious smartphone spying app is Pegasus. Even this app requires safe passage into the target phone. Not to mention, the spy app installs many packages on the target mobile phone and silently wipes those when the work is done. So, Pegasus rarely leaves a footprint.
So, it’s not possible from an individual level to use a spy app for Android without access to the target phone. Instead, you can use the following apps on Android or iOS to gain some level of third-party mobile phone monitoring capabilities:
Popular Spy Apps (Not on Google Play)
There are many spy apps for Android phones in the market claiming that they let you spy on the target phone. However, in reality, most of those apps are scams just to put you in a sales funnel and siphon off money from you.
Thus, Google removed most of those apps from the Google Play store. I researched many such apps and found the following popular. However, they’re not on Google Play. So, if you don’t prefer apps from third-party sources, you don’t need to install these. If you badly need a spying app, you can check these out at your own risk:
TheOneSpy
TheOneSpy Android developers have built it as a discrete, feature-packed, and insightful spy phone app for Android devices like smartphones, tablets, etc. Parents, employers, partners, and so on can install the app on the target mobile phones and tablets to get spy data remotely. It offers the following functionalities:
- Live audio and video using the device camera and microphone
- Device screen mirroring without audio
- Monitor social media conversations on WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, etc.
- Track device GPS to get accurate location of the phone and owner
- Hidden mode so that the target individual can’t spot your tracking
- Complete parental control features
- Compatible with Android 10 and later devices
mSPY
mSPY focuses on parental control features. It’s one of the best spy apps for android phones for parental control. Hence, if you’re a concerned mother or father wanting to control your kid’s smartphone usage, you can try this app. The device doesn’t show any mSPY app icon once you install and start spying on your minor or teenage children. Thus, they don’t know if you’re secretly tracking their devices. Its salient features are:
- Monitor keystrokes and taps
- Track device location
- Phone call record tracking
- Search history tracking
- Social media chat monitoring
Cocospy
Cocospy is popular for spying on iPhones and iPads without jailbreaking these devices. Recently, the app developer also launched the app as a spy phone app for Android. According to the app’s official website, the product is meant for business owners to track employee productivity and parents to monitor their minor children. However, its mobile phone tracking features suggest that partners can use it to spy on their spouses.
Hoverwatch
Hoverwatch, a spy app for Android phones, lets you try the app for five devices for a few days. For Android devices, you must disable Google Play Protect’s protection features before you can install the spy app on the target device. Its Android spying features include the following functionalities:
- Camera and microphone monitoring
- Call records and SMS text tracking
- Social media message tracking
- GPS location monitoring
- Invisible tracking of the target individual
uMobix
If you want to monitor your kid’s or teenager child’s smartphone continuously and in real-time, you can give uMobix, a spy phone app for Android, a try. The app is available for both Android and iOS devices. Among modern parents in the USA, uMobix is popular because it can monitor more than 30 apps on the target device. For example, you can track activities on apps like Google Chrome, Skype, Line, TikTok, Telegram, and so on.
Also read: uMobix Review: Is This Spy App The Best?
Popular Spy Apps (From Google Play)
These apps are available on Google Play. So, Google must have found some utility in these apps and hence kept them on its Android app marketplace.
Google Family Link
Google Family Link is one of the leading parental control apps available on the Google Play app marketplace. Google developed this app so it comes with the same levels of privacy and security features as other Google apps and hardware products.
Here are the functionalities that’ll help you keep your children safer online:
- Screen time limit settings
- Help kids get appropriate content themselves
- Manage childs’ accounts, privacy, and data-sharing settings
- Get notifications based on the child’s mobile phone locations
- See kids’ locations on your own device
Family Locator
Family Locator is another reliable app for the whole family. You can add your kids, parents, adult children, spouse, and more in the app. You’ll know their live location and chat with them directly on the app.
For minor children, you can set safe zones and unsafe zones. The app will send an instant notification if it finds the device in any unsafe zone so you can rescue your kid from there. There is also an SOS button to fetch the exact GPS location of the mobile phone if the kid is missing.
Google Find My Device
Google Find My Device app lets you control device access via your Google accounts. The app uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS location to provide its services. You can call it an actual spy app without having access to the target phone because:
- It can reveal a mobile phones position based on the GPS tracking system without installing any app on the target device
- With appropriate access, you can wipe clean a mobile phone’s internal storage and reset the device
- You can lock the device remotely or make it ring, so that surrounding people notice the device
However, it won’t reveal the mobile phone’s contact list, text messages, social media chat history, etc.
KidsGuard
KidsGuard is a trusted app for controlling and supervising children’s mobile phones remotely. However, you must install the app on the target smartphone or tablet by downloading it from Google Play.
In its free version, it lets you track a few basic features of the target phone for up to three phones. The free functionalities are as outlined below:
- Limit specific app usage
- Real-time GPS location tracking
- Website blocking and usage controlling
For advanced parental control and mobile phone remote tracking features, you must buy in-app items that cost between $9.99 – $49.99.
FamilyTime Parental Control
You can also try FamilyTime Parental Control to monitor the smartphone usage of your minor children. One of its best features is an instant phone lock. Should you feel that your child is using the smartphone excessively throughout the day, you can press a single button on your FamilyTime Parental Control app to lock the mobile phone. Consequently, your children will get more time for reading and homework.
Conclusion
The best spy app for Android without access to the target phone is simply a trick to get money from people who think such spy apps will change their lives. Hence, you shouldn’t fall prey to such scams. You may check out traditional smartphone monitoring or spying apps available on Google Play. You can try out third-party apps too after performing enough due diligence.
The above discussion is completely for educational purposes. I don’t approve of any sort of spying by discussing the apps and software above in this article. Comment below if you found any of the above apps useful.