Can two people both answer the same phone number?

What sharing a number usually turns out to mean

• Roommates advertising a room. Both of you want to answer viewings, and neither wants their mobile number on the ad.
• A couple selling a car or a sofa. One of you is at work when the buyer texts, and the buyer does not wait.
• Two partners running something small. Whoever is free picks it up, and both of you need to be able to find what was said.
• A landlord and a property manager on one listing, each answering from their own desk.
• A handover. One person sets the number up, somebody else answers it next month, and nobody wants a password passed around.

What Google Voice already covers, and where it stops

A Google Voice number is attached to one Google account, and Google lets that account link another phone, so a call can ring more than one handset. If ringing two phones in the United States is the whole of what you need, it is free and you should stop here.

Texts are where it gets awkward. The free personal product has no second seat and no per-person inbox: the message history, the settings and the number all sit in one person’s account, the same account as their mail, files and photos. Check Google’s own message-forwarding settings before taking anyone’s word for what reaches a linked phone.

The usual workarounds are forwarding the notification mail, or installing the app on a second phone signed in to the same account. Both hold until the password changes or the account owner moves on, and neither gives the second person an account of their own. In Canada the free product is not offered at all, which the guide on getting Google Voice in Canada, linked below, covers in full.

How one number reaches five inboxes here

You buy one number and list up to five email addresses on it. Every text sent to the number is copied to all of them. Nobody but the account owner signs in to anything: it arrives as ordinary mail, in the inbox each person already reads, on whatever phone or laptop they already use. Yahoo may put the first one in spam.

To answer, reply to that email. Your reply leaves as a text from the listing number, and your email address is stripped out before it goes. The person who texted sees one number, not five people. Trim the quoted history anyway; stripping it is best-effort.

On a Monthly Canadian number the same five-way split covers calls: a call rings up to five phones at once, whoever picks up hears the caller’s number read out before they speak, and an email lands for every forwarded call, answered or missed. Monthly includes 300 call minutes. A U.S. number takes texts only, and so does any pass: a caller hears a short spoken message asking them to text instead.

Passes start at C$2.99 and never renew. Monthly is C$14.99 a month, free for the first 14 days with a card at checkout, once per account, and renews until you cancel. Prices in Canadian dollars. Your card issuer converts the charge and may add a foreign transaction fee.

Exactly how the replies behave, including the parts that annoy people

• Any of the five can reply, and nothing stops two of you answering the same text. Both replies are sent. Agree who takes which conversation, or expect the buyer to get two answers to one question.
• The first reply each person receives carries a short label you choose, for example "Apartment 3B via TheLocalRing. Reply STOP to end." Later replies in the same conversation do not repeat it, and somebody who comes back a month later is starting a new conversation and sees it again. The relay is visible to them; nobody is being fooled about what they are texting.
• It is receive-first. Any of you can reply to somebody who texted the number in the last 30 days. None of you can text somebody first, so it does not cover outreach, reminders, or a first message to a new applicant.
• Your replies cannot carry a picture; a reply from an inbox goes out as plain text every time. Picture messaging is not a feature here. A picture somebody sends you may arrive; when it does, it reaches all five inboxes as a link. Do not build on it in either direction.
• A reply longer than about 1,500 characters is cut short. No voicemail, and no shared read state. Your inbox shows what you have read; it does not show what the other person has read or already answered.
• One number per account, and no way to assign a conversation to a particular person. It is five copies of the same mail, not a queue.
• A Canadian number sends texts within Canada only. A U.S. number texts both countries. Neither will receive verification codes for a bank, a marketplace, or an app signup.

Which one fits

• One person in the United States who wants a free permanent number that answers calls: Google Voice. The guide on Google Voice for a rental listing, linked below, says when that is the whole answer.
• Two people in the United States who want both phones to ring on one number, at no cost: Google Voice with a second phone linked to it. Stop there if that is all you need.
• Two to five people answering one public number from their own inboxes, for as long as the listing runs: a number here.
• A team that needs assigned conversations, internal notes, and a record per customer: a business phone system, not this.
• Anybody who has to send the first message: none of the above.

Questions people ask next

Related guides