TextNow 101: Getting Started With Calling

You’ve got your TextNow phone. You’ve followed the on-screen instructions to get it hooked up to your wi-fi, and you’ve activated your device. So… how do you use this thing anyway?

This article takes a closer look at calling with TextNow, including some features of which you might not have been aware. Let’s start!

Cute family!

Making A Call

First thing to know is you can choose to use the TextNow app to place your call, or use your phone’s native dialer by turning on that option in the TextNow settings menu. We’ll take a look at the app dialer first.

Place a call by tapping on your TextNow icon on your smartphone’s home page, and tap on the dial pad to enter a number to call. You’ll find the dialer pad icon in the top right-hand corner of the TextNow app, along the blue bar. Like this:

Shockingly, the icon you tap to call looks like a little phone! Clever.

Tap on that icon, and it’ll bring up the dialer pad.

The dial pad screen, with the Call History button (bottom left) and Contact button (bottom right).

From there, you have a couple of options: You can dial the number manually like you would on any dial pad; you can tap on the little silhouette of a person in the bottom right to bring up your Contacts app and call one of your contacts already stored on your phone; or you can tap on the clock icon in the bottom left to bring up your call history.

Calling Outside The US and Canada

For you international bright young things out there, you can also find our international rates from the dialer. Near the top right there’s a drop-down menu that says Canada & USA. Tap on that and you’ll see a list of the countries we support for international calling, along with the current rates. (You’ll need to purchase international long distance credits to be able to call numbers from outside the US and Canada.)

One more nice little thing: On the top-left of the screen there’s a menu button with three grey vertical dots. Tap on that for some extra options, like adding a number to your Contacts app on your phone, or pasting in a number you’ve cut from another app on your phone.

Wait, What Was That About Using The Native Dialer?

The Android native dialer screen.

Thought I forgot about that, didn’t you?

We’ve recently added this feature to TextNow for our plan subscribers. It’s only available right now for devices using Android Marshmallow (6.0) and above on a CDMA network. You can turn it on in the Calling section of the TextNow options menu — you can find a complete explanation on our Support article here.

Receiving Calls

Getting a call on your TextNow phone is super easy. And to answer some questions that come up surprisingly frequently, you do not need to have your TextNow app open to receive calls, nor does your phone screen need to be on. As long as you’re logged into your TextNow account and your phone isn’t completely powered off, calls will come through.

Here’s what an incoming call looks like:

When you get a call, you’ll see this screen. (With a different number, of course.) Swipe the green button along the green arrows towards the bottom-center of the screen to answer the call, or swipe the red button towards the bottom-center to hang up. That’s it!

For further reading, check out our Support site, with more Getting Started articles, device manuals and Quick Start guides, help on managing your TextNow account, and loads of troubleshooting tips.