How To: Create One Inbox for All Your Instant Messaging Apps on Android

Your favorite instant messaging service might not be your friend's preferred choice of communicating, and your sibling might prefer yet another. So when they send you messages via different apps, it's like having one address but multiple mailboxes on a single porch.

To fix this frustrating problem, I'm going to show you an app that consolidates all of your instant messaging services into one neatly contained inbox, so you never have to jump from app to app again.

Newly released as a beta on the Google Play Store by developer Squanda, Snowball is an app that brings all of your messages into a unified inbox. It's a must-have if you're using Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or other messaging services to communicate with your contacts.

Step 1: Install Snowball

Begin by installing Snowball from the Play Store—but hold off on launching it for now. You want to make sure you've got all of the necessary messaging apps first, if you haven't already.

Step 2: Install Your Instant Messaging Apps

This step may be optional for some. If you use Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, LINE, etc., check the list below for a link to download and install the apps.

• Facebook Messenger
• Google Hangouts
• LINE
• Snapchat
• WeChat
• WhatsApp Messenger

Once you have apps installed for each service that you use, just log in with your account credentials and you're ready for Snowball.

Step 3: Use Snowball as Your All-in-One Messaging App

Launch Snowball and click through the brief walkthrough, then enable Notification access when prompted.

From now on, when a new message is received from one of your installed messaging services, Snowball will file it into one single inbox. A chat head will appear à la Facebook Messenger, making it easy to access your inbox no matter what you're doing on your Android device.

To reply, just tap the message and you'll be taken to the app for which the message was sent to.

The beta version is solid, and the only real addition I'd like to see is the ability to reply to messages within Snowball directly, but it does a good job of quickly opening the app that messages originated from.

Let us know what you think in the comments below, or on Facebook/Twitter.