Supporting parents in India, from abroad? You need to know about OTP forwarding.

If you've ever tried to get an OTP from your parents in India while you're in the US (or anywhere else), you know how frustrating it can be.

Many people who live abroad end up managing their aging parents' online accounts and services remotely — banks, BigBasket, Blinkit, Swiggy, Uber, Ola. All these services work via OTP to the account-linked phone. You can log in from abroad and do things for your loved ones, but only after you get that precious OTP.

This is much harder than it sounds. First, Mom or Dad needs to be near their phone. India OTPs have a really short lifetime, so even if it takes 30 seconds to relay one over WhatsApp, it has already expired. Then a mildly amusing game starts — you trigger another OTP, but they read out the earlier one, which is already dead. If your parents aren't nimble with their phones (and who can blame them), switching between SMS and WhatsApp can be hard.

PhoneLeash was built years ago as an app that forwards texts to email — long before OTPs became so common. It turns out to be a near-perfect fit for this specific forwarding need.

Many families have installed it on their parents' phones, and it has made life much simpler. Ordering from BigBasket or Swiggy, booking an Ola, scheduling a medical appointment — all of it can be done for them, in seconds, from abroad. A simple tool, but it really takes the stress out of a lot of online chores.

The setup has to be simple enough for Mom or Dad to do unaided. A recent version sets up in three clicks plus one email/phone entry.

What about security?

First — make sure your parents have consented.

Next, secure the destination. Use Gmail with 2FA or passkeys. Treat this Gmail account like a bank login. You can also forward to another phone number instead of an email, which limits access naturally. Delete OTPs right after using them. PhoneLeash also lets you remotely pause and restart forwarding, so it stays on only when needed.

As an extra safeguard, PhoneLeash shows a sticky status notification — so it's always visible that the app is installed, active, and where it's forwarding to.

One more thing: some services (Amazon, for instance) send OTPs over WhatsApp. PhoneLeash forwards WhatsApp codes too — it just takes a couple more taps during setup.

Give it a try

PhoneLeash on Google Play — free for 30 days, no payment mechanism required to start the trial. $0.99/month after that.