I’ve been trying to keep tabs on my teenager’s phone usage since I noticed some suspicious late-night activity, but I’m not tech-savvy enough to set up anything complicated. I looked into a few apps that claim to sync messages to a web dashboard, but they all require physical access to install first. Is there any legitimate way to just view incoming and outgoing texts from a different number without touching the device or getting caught?
Hey Jessica, totally get it — late-night phone activity with a teenager is classic “time to pay attention” territory. 
Straight answer though: no legitimate app can read texts from a number without first touching that device — anything claiming otherwise is either a scam or illegal, so skip those.
Honestly your easiest moves right now are checking your carrier’s family plan dashboard (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile all show call/text logs), or if it’s an iPhone just dig into Screen Time via your shared Apple ID — no sneaky install needed, just parental controls doing their job.