[Feature] SMS parsing #184

New Issue

GiteaMirror · 2026-02-28T18:51:29-06:00

GiteaMirror commented

2026-02-28 18:51:29 -06:00

Originally created by @rich-howell on GitHub (Jan 22, 2023).

Discussed in https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/discussions/390

^{Originally posted by ahmaddxb November 14, 2022}
The ability to auto create transactions etc... from parsing banking SMS on your mobile phone. I'm using another financial app and this is very good feature.

They use price, last 4 digits of the account / card number and some text to identify the retailer in a template you can adjust. You can then assign that to categories.

Originally created by @rich-howell on GitHub (Jan 22, 2023). ### Discussed in https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/discussions/390 <div type='discussions-op-text'> <sup>Originally posted by **ahmaddxb** November 14, 2022</sup> The ability to auto create transactions etc... from parsing banking SMS on your mobile phone. I'm using another financial app and this is very good feature. They use price, last 4 digits of the account / card number and some text to identify the retailer in a template you can adjust. You can then assign that to categories. </div>

GiteaMirror added the feature label 2026-02-28 18:51:29 -06:00

GiteaMirror closed this issue

2026-02-28 18:51:30 -06:00

GiteaMirror commented

2026-02-28 18:51:30 -06:00

@j-f1 commented on GitHub (Jan 30, 2023):

This would be a cool feature, but I’m curious how it would be implemented? As a web app we don’t have direct access to text messages (and even if we could request that access I would be wary of implementing it for privacy reasons). I think this might be best suited to an external tool that you could copy the message content into, and then have it auto-add to Actual. Maybe it would better to have a dedicated URL (like /add-transaction?payee=W&date=X&amount=Y&account=Z&notes=foo&cleared=true) that would prompt the user to confirm adding the transaction? Then you’d be able to use Shortcuts (or the Android equivalent) to parse the text message and open that route on your local Actual instance.

@j-f1 commented on GitHub (Jan 30, 2023): This would be a cool feature, but I’m curious how it would be implemented? As a web app we don’t have direct access to text messages (and even if we could request that access I would be wary of implementing it for privacy reasons). I think this might be best suited to an external tool that you could copy the message content into, and then have it auto-add to Actual. Maybe it would better to have a dedicated URL (like `/add-transaction?payee=W&date=X&amount=Y&account=Z&notes=foo&cleared=true`) that would prompt the user to confirm adding the transaction? Then you’d be able to use Shortcuts (or the Android equivalent) to parse the text message and open that route on your local Actual instance.

GiteaMirror commented

2026-02-28 18:51:30 -06:00

@MatissJanis commented on GitHub (Mar 30, 2023):

👋 Thanks for the idea! It seems that this has not gained traction so far.

In order to keep our backlog of issues in order I'll close this one off. But if you are still interested in building this - please open up a new issue where you outline the proposal or open up a PR and we can discuss further there.

@MatissJanis commented on GitHub (Mar 30, 2023): :wave: Thanks for the idea! It seems that this has not gained traction so far. In order to keep our backlog of issues in order I'll close this one off. But if you are still interested in building this - please open up a new issue where you outline the proposal or open up a PR and we can discuss further there.