Send text from gmail to phone number

If you have Gmail, you probably regularly use it to drop messages in other people’s inboxes. But you may not realize you can use the tool to send a message that will come in as a text message on your recipient’s phone. You’ll just need each recipient’s phone number, as well as the cellphone carrier they’re using.

Using Gmail for Text

As younger generations increasingly fill the workplace, businesses are finding that traditional ways of communicating aren’t as effective. Millennials aren’t fans of talking on the phone on an ongoing basis – making email, text and chat tools more popular. Although email remains the most popular millennial business communication tool, a text message can tend to get more attention, which often means you’ll get a faster response.

But sending text messages using your phone can be laborious. For professionals, especially, it can be easier to fire off a quick email, especially if you’re texting a group. Fortunately, you can send a text message through email, as long as you know the person’s cellphone carrier and phone number.

Send Text Using Gmail

To send a text message, you’ll need to know the cell phone carrier of each recipient. Once you have that information, you can choose the appropriate gateway. Gateways for the most common cell phone carriers are as follows. You need to input the 10-digit phone number of the recipient before the @.

  • AT&T: @txt.att.net
  • T-Mobile: @tmomail.net
  • Verizon: @vtext.com
  • Sprint: @messaging.sprintpcs.com

Once you’ve gathered someone’s phone number and carrier, you can save the information as a contact in Gmail. Do this by navigating to contacts.google.com in any browser. Choose the plus sign in the bottom-right corner, and input the information.

You may want to make sure you note in the contact name that this is a text message-based email to avoid accidentally sending messages you intended to be through email to that address.

Remember that text messages are designed to be succinct. You’ll have a limit of 160 characters per message, which means longer messages will be split. Separate messages will cause multiple notifications, which can be both annoying and difficult to read. For that reason, this method is best for sending quick notifications or initiating a two-way chat.

Send Gmail to a Group

One of the best uses of Gmail for SMS is if you routinely send texts to a group of people. You can create a group in Gmail that will include all of the people you normally text. If you send out a Monday-morning reminder, for instance, you could create a group that has everyone on your team you want to include, so that you can send the message in a couple of steps.

To create a group in Gmail, go to contacts.google.com and check the box on the left of each name for each person you want to add to the group. Once you’ve selected everyone, choose the label icon from the top of the list and choose Create Label to give your group a name. This will put everyone you’ve chosen in the appropriate group.

Send Message Without Gmail

If you have an Android-based phone, you don’t have to go through Gmail to send a text message. Go to messages.android.com to get a special QR code you can scan. This will pair your computer with your phone, letting you receive and send messages through your computer the same way you would through your phone.

A similar feature exists with Apple, as long as you have both an iPhone and a Mac. You’ll need to be signed in to both devices using your Apple ID, at which point it should automatically sync up. Type in iMessage on the Search bar of your Mac, and the messaging feature will open.

With the many different messaging apps and services available to us online and on our mobile phones, sometimes it’s easy to forget that good old SMS still exists. Like the pneumatic tubes in mailrooms from days of old, the pneumatic tube of texting is sending an SMS via email. If you’re ever in a pinch and without your phone for whatever reason, here is a guide on sending a text message via email.

Contents

  • How to send text messages via email
  • Download an extension for faster texting
  • Use web app services (business-friendly)

Send text from gmail to phone number

How to send text messages via email

This guide will walk you through a few different methods on how to send a text from your email account. If you find yourself sending texts through email often, you might want to download a browser extension to make your life a little easier.

Step 1: Using the email client of your choice, compose your email. You can use either your smartphone or your computer to write it.

Step 2: Instead of entering an email address in the recipient box, insert the 10-digit phone number of the person you’re trying to reach.

Step 3: Once entered, tack on the appropriate “@gateway” address behind the phone number.

Below, we’ve put together a list of some of the most common service providers in the United States and their corresponding gateway addresses. Keep in mind that if you’re trying to send a message that’s more than 160 characters long, it will often be sent through the Multimedia Message Service (MMS). If the person you’re messaging doesn’t have a messaging plan that includes MMS, then they will not receive the message, or they may be charged an extra fee to open it. However, some carriers also offer email-to-MMS gateways, so make sure to use this if it's a long message.

CarrierSMS Gateway DomainMMS Gateway Domain
AT&T
Boost Mobile
Cricket Wireless
Google Project Fi
Republic Wireless None
Sprint
Straight Talk
T-Mobile
Ting None
Tracfone Depends on underlying carrier
U.S. Cellular
Verizon
Virgin Mobile

One final thing to note is if you use Boost, Cricket Wireless, Republic Wireless, Straight Talk, Ting, or Tracfone -- all of which are mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) -- you may need to enter the gateway address belonging to either Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T, rather than those in the above list, as they all piggyback on these major networks.

Send text from gmail to phone number

Download an extension for faster texting

If you use Chrome as your browser and want to send SMS using your Gmail account often, we suggest trying this timesaving extension. It's called Send Your Email to SMS (text), and it will format your email automatically for texting, makes email-to-text much easier to read, and is more efficient as you don’t have to worry about carrier codes. Messages arrive in your inbox and can be replied to, making it more natural to carry on a conversation with a mobile user, and you can even set up SMS alerts for incoming emails, too.

If you want more automation and use Google Voice, it's possible to link Google Calendar with Gmail with the If This Then That (IFTTT) smart device management system. From here, you can set up IFTTT to schedule a text using Google Voice, which some may find a faster option than going through the whole process with email.

Send text from gmail to phone number

Use web app services (business-friendly)

There are many online services and apps for sending texts via email, which may be more suitable for businesses. Message Media is one of our favorites since it makes the process very simple, and it supports SMS, RCS, MMS, Messenger, and even WhatsApp messages.

It has a useful feature where you can see your original message and the subsequent responses, so you can quickly track a conversation. It also allows you to text international phone numbers, and for an additional cost, you can use alpha tags for identifying senders, text-to-voice, dedicated numbers, and other handy extras.

You can try Message Media for free to see if it works for you, but you’ll need to sign up for a monthly subscription to continue use after the trial period.

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Can you text from an email to a phone number?

When you send an email to text, the email address you'll enter in the To field consists of the recipient's phone number and the carrier's SMS or MMS gateway domain. For example, if the phone number is 123-456-7890 and the carrier is AT&T, the email address is [email protected].

Can you forward Gmail to text messages?

In Gmail, click on the gear icon in the top right corner to “See all settings.” Under “Forwarding and POP/IMAP,” select “Add a forwarding address” and enter your phone's SMS gateway address, such as “[email protected].” Click Next, and then choose Proceed.

Can you send text messages from Google account?

You can use the Google Voice website to send text messages to one or more phone numbers. If you send a text longer than 160 characters to a non-Google Voice number, it's sent as multiple messages. Note: You can't send texts to five- or six-digit “short code” numbers. On your computer, go to voice.google.com.