A developer has unveiled BlueFerry, an experimental project that enables Linux users to send and receive iMessage and SMS messages through a paired iPhone via Bluetooth, bypassing Apple’s traditional ecosystem reliance.
BlueFerry is a new open-source project that aims to bring iMessage and SMS to Linux through a paired iPhone, using Bluetooth rather than a Mac relay, Apple account login or cloud service. The project, credited to a developer using the name erikwb, is designed to tap into iOS’s existing Message Access Profile, the same accessory interface used by some car systems, and present it through a native desktop app on Linux. In practice, iOS still decides whether a message goes out as iMessage or SMS, so Apple’s own routing, encryption and delivery receipt handling remain in place.
The project currently offers native clients for GNOME, KDE and Quickshell, with shared data for pairings, contacts, message history and preferences. According to the project notes, users can send and receive messages, start new conversations using a phone number or Apple ID email address and synchronise contacts automatically. There is also an option to mirror other iPhone notifications to the desktop.
BlueFerry is still experimental and leaves out several features users may expect from a mature messaging bridge. Attachments, reactions, typing indicators, FaceTime, voice calls and a full sent-message history from before pairing are not supported yet. The developer has also warned that the system depends on Bluetooth behaviour that Apple could alter at any time, which makes long-term reliability uncertain.
The software is released under the GPL-2.0-only licence, with source code, architecture notes, protocol documentation and testing details published for review on GitHub. Installation instructions are included in the repository, but there are no distro packages yet, so most users will need to build it themselves. Similar cross-platform messaging tools have typically relied on a Mac-based server, as seen with projects such as BlueBubbles, which make iMessage available on other devices but still require a Mac to stay online.
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