How to Send Text Messages (SMS) Via Email for Free
This may not be news for a lot of people, but I just discovered that you can send text messages via email to most major cellular providers. This tip is stellar in that it is part stupid frugal trick (save money on texting from your cell phone by emailing for free), part productivity (you can probably type faster from a normal QWERTY keyboard than a phone), and part tech geek. You get the three-fer on this one! Here’s how to do it.
How to Send a Text Message (SMS) Via Email:
To send a text message via email, just substitute a 10-digit cell number for ‘number’ for each carrier below:
- AT&T: number@txt.att.net
- Qwest: number@qwestmp.com
- T-Mobile: number@tmomail.net
- Verizon: number@vtext.com
- Sprint: number@messaging.sprintpcs.com or number@pm.sprint.com
- Virgin Mobile: number@vmobl.com
- Nextel: number@messaging.nextel.com
- Alltel: number@message.alltel.com
- Metro PCS: number@mymetropcs.com
- Powertel: number@ptel.com
- Boost Mobile: number@myboostmobile.com
- Suncom: number@tms.suncom.com
- Tracfone: number@mmst5.tracfone.com
- U.S. Cellular: number@email.uscc.net
Making the Most of Texting from Email:
To take this to the next level from a productivity standpoint, I’d recommend creating ‘contacts’ within your email account so that you aren’t constantly looking up all of those cell numbers that you don’t have memorized each time you send an email.
How to Add Cell Numbers for Text Messaging in Gmail Contacts:
In the following example, I’m going to add my mom’s cell to my gmail contacts. Let’s say that her phone provider is Verizon and her number is (555)123-4567. A should be able to set up contacts through most email programs (if you can’t, switch to gmail).
1. Click on ‘contacts’:
2. Now, add a new contact:
3. Put in ‘name’ and the word ‘cell’ to clarify between email and cell contacts:
4. When composing a new text message, simply type in your contact’s name:
Texting through Email Topics
- What text message productivity tips have you found to be useful?
- Have you figured out any other ways to save on text messages?
- Are there any providers I’ve missed?
Related Posts:
- Net10 Prepaid Cell Phone Review
- Tracfone Review
- 8 Personal Finance Spring Cleaning Ninja Moves!
- Virgin Mobile Beyond Talk
I am G.E. Miller, & 
And it doesn’t charge you? Sweet. Great tip.
-Nate
wait so can u send attachments like uhm. songs and stuff to people. lets say i want to send a song to my phone. but i dont have internet browser. i have unlimited text,pic and email. but im not sure if email texts bill as internet use. if it doesnt can i send stuff from my email to my phone?
@Nathan – Haven’t tried attachments out yet. If it works and your provider doesn’t charge you, check back and let us know.
waht about for criket?
Is there anyway it can be sent anonymously…..I don’t want my name or number to show up to the receiver. Thanks, Chris
i dont think so but it seems like you are hiding something
I can’t get the ATT text messages to work at the above address. Do I have to send out one message at a time?
here’s one to add to the list, was hard to get too.
boost mobile number@myboostmobile.com
Chris, when you send text messages from email, the text message will have your email address but it won’t have your phone number..is that what you’re asking? So the receiver will have whatever name your email is set up for but no number will be displayed. BTW, sending anonymous = fishy.
This is great to use, especially when you don’t have a phone. I do this all the time with my friends.
I have a relience india mobile (RIM)-CDMA how can i use this method
And
also tel me BSNL also
I’m Fom UP-East, india
my girl has a metro pcs phone and i would like to send her msgs via email to her cell but would u please explain it in terms for dummies please. I’m not understanding exactly how or maybe u can just email me and explain better. thx im a lil slow to learn
how do you send one to cricket mobile?
Hello are you getting this .
add number@sms.mycricket.com and if u want to send mms jst change da sms. …2…..number@mms.mycricket.com
Hey can someone help me find out the sms for movilnet? I can’t find anything! haha
Ok, so you send a text message from your email account to someone’s cell phone using the method you’ve described. And when they reply to that text, does their message come back to your email account?
Mav, no, if the recipient replies to the text, it will not come back to your email account.
Actually I’ve tried it since posting that comment, and their texts do come back to my Gmail account, which is vital for this to be a really useful future, so I’m definitely glad about that. One person even transitioned from responding by text, to signing into her gmail account to continue the conversation, and gmail seamlessly kept the conversation going in the same chat window for me. When she switched from her phone to gmail, it just started showing her name on each message instead of her phone number. And of course it’s all saved in my Gmail chat history. Gmail is smooth.
Here’s the more important question: how can I determine a person’s wireless carrier, if I can’t otherwise contact them to ask them? This is a legitimate need, because if I’m texting them from my Gmail account, it’s often because I can’t easily contact them another way. There are websites that allow you to input the number and they output the service that provided the number, with varying degrees of success, but I don’t know of any solution that really works well for this. If anyone knows of the best website for this, please post.
Hi Mav – yes, you are correct on the reply feature. Very nice. I Googled and found this site for reverse carrier lookup: http://freesms.1888usa.com/revcell.htm
Not sure how accurate it is though. Asking is always the safest bet, I suppose.
What about getting a reply from the person that you texted to. Is that possible? And if so, how do you do it?
@ Mike
When you text a person from Gmail, that person simply replies to that text. Their reply shows up in the Gmail chat window you’re using to text them, or as an email in your Gmail inbox.
HI,
Thanks for the blog, I have a question: I don’t have texting in my mobile device but I do have email. Following your instructions I could now sent txt via email, but How could other mobile devices that I have not send an email as txt send me a text? Ex. Say my friend only has my phone number and wants to send me a txt, how could they do this?
Help is appreciated
Thanks
Juan, so you’re saying that if your mobile device does not support texting and your friend only has your phone number, then how can he send you a text that you’ll somehow receive elsewhere? That I do not know of a way to do. I wish I had a service where all my text messages coming from and to my mobile phone number could be retrieved, archived, and sent online in addition to my own phone, and such a service would fit what you’re looking for as well. But I don’t know of such a service. However, if your friend also had your email address, he could simply send a text message from his phone to your email address. It’s the exact same thing as texting someone’s phone, but instead of sending the text to a phone number, he sends to your email address.
I realize this is an old article, but still found it. In order to send messages to Verizon phones you will need to use “@vzwpix.com” instead of “@vtext.com”
Hey will this work if the mobile is in a diffrent country ? For example. I am in Canada but my friend i wanna email/text live in the U.S. Can i use this method for that ?
@Aphrodite: I believe most or all of the wireless carriers in that list are in the USA. It makes no difference where in the world you are when you send the text message from your email account. So yes, you should be able to use this method.
It didn’t work for me, I have At&t.
It did work for me after all. There is just a LONG delay….takes about 3o minutes to reach the recipent.
I so sent earlier messages. But became now cheap to call if to use ip a telephony with a call back and consequently sms from the computer I do not send. Thanks for the information
im texting a at&t phone and there getting my text and texting back but im not getting the text in my email. ive texted verizon and boost mobile and i get the text back just fine. y am i not getting text back from at&t phones.
What about Credo Mobile? Anybody know the domain for text via email with them?
thanks very usefull information !
anyone know how to text to BOOST mobile numbers?
hey my gf yell at me cause she said that they were charging her for emails and they weren’t counted towards in coming texts… she has Verizon… so i don’t know… she might be lieing to me…. sigh
hi I have texted an at&t phone and it doesn’t work?? All other companies work but that one everytime I text it sends me a message instantly saying the message didnt go through if you guys have any answers please email me at gilbertd13@yahoo.com thanks
Fot AT&T use the number and @mms.att.net
Try postmytext.com it has all this built in
CREDO is apparently using Sprint:
[phonenumber]@messaging.sprintpcs.com
christ,
i’m from malaysia and i’m not sure my service provider really have this service and i dont know what to add at the back of my phone no.(i mean for example 1234567891@??????.com).can u help me?
p/s:sorry for my rotten english
owh..
sorry for typo..i thought chris is the author.so sorry G.E Miller…anyone,please help me..
I am using a Digicel (phone comapny) phone in Papua new Ginea but unable to get the carrier’s email to sms domain name..
I ma trying to sms afreind using my gmail but cannot becaust I dont know my carrirers
‘s sms domain name..
Mobile company is Digicel
Please can one brillant person help me on this?
Thanksyou
JMaiapu
Cool. Worked for me. Thanks!
If someone less familiar to me sends a text and I want to respond through my email, is there any way for me to determine who there carrier might be so as to key in one of the 12 plus carrier addresses?
To text NET 10 folk: 10 DIGITnumber@mms.att.net
i know this post is super old, but thanks for the info! i just needed it for ONE thing and couldn’t find anything accurate anywhere else.
i have att but want to send to tmobile, what address do i use? i tried vtext.com after number but i dont think its working….sigh
catherine, number@vtext.com is Verizon. Use number@tmomail.net for TMobile
my daughter is using a phone from Safelink wireless which is part of Tracfone. How can I send her a text?
I want to send a text message via me using email. So if i send that person a text from my email, he will get it? Will it COST him to reply? Or will it COST me to send it? Thanks!
Data24-7 provides a service which will look-up the carriers for your phone numbers and provide you with the proper SMS and MMS email addresses. It’s number portability aware, so if someone changes carriers, the change will be reflected in the service within an hour. They have an API, or you can upload files of phone numbers to be processed. The website is http://www.data24-7.com.
Thanks MARK for your help.
GREAT TOOL for marketing!
If you want to do music and pictures for verizon you need to do
number@vzwpix.com
Hello, I am looking for a way to send email to text for QTel in Qatar, does anyone know how to do this. Also, 02 in the UK would be helpful. I use this all the time for att and verizon in the USA. I find that with ATT sometimes there was a delay but verizon is always instant and my friends can use text to email straight back to me
To send text only to AT&T as noted you use ##########@txt.att.net.
To send pictures or videos to AT&T you use ##########@mms.att.net.
The pictures, videos, etc. must be added as attachments (not embedded in the document). Also the total message size cannot exceed 600KB. Resize your images or compress your video before sending it, or the message will be rejected.
Other carriers may have different size limits, I use AT&T so that’s all I know.
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Omg i want to send a picture off my ipod to my phone but cant use the internet so how do i send picture through texts on my ipod?!?!?!?! PLZZZZZ HELP!!!!
you can download a texting app, from the app store on your ipod and iphone then txt the pic from ipod to ur iphone
does ATT charge for that? like to recieve and/or reply?
Another to add.
Ntelos Wireless – Number@pcs.ntelos.net
I have Verizon,I also have unlimited txting but no data plan.
What would i put as the recipient if i want to send myself a mp3 i have? And would this cost me money?
Thanks
Hi Mike, did you ever figure out how to do this? (texting to/from email with Verizon phone with unlimited texting)
Just looked up this information on google— found this page.
Wondering– do you have to know the provider of the person you are sending the email/text too? If so how do you know??
it just doesnt work for me, at all. why?
How do you send emails to an ipod with Text Free?
Why don’t you just send the person an email if they have an iPod touch? LOL Are you blonde? Just wondering…
this was really useful since i dont get to talk to my sister often
do you know wataniya or dhiraagu sms gateway address
It works.. Thanks. I just sent a text via Gmail to my wife’s, ATT iPhone. I use a prepaid phone (a cheepo) and have not bothered to set up texting with it, but I am on/or near my iMac 10-12hrs a day. Cheers.
Jim
i was wondering if the person i send the txt to can send one back?
Yes, if they just hit reply, they can text back to your email address.
Any way to send texts via e-mail to those contests that tell you to text “XYZ” to 12345, etc???
Great Help! Thanks!!!
But remeber not to place the “1″ before your area code.
It should be xxx(area code) and then your destination #.
i.e. xxx-X0X-X0X0
If you text someone a email and they reply does it cost you extra to recieve it? I have unlimited texting, could I talk to them like that without getting charged extra?
how do you sent pics to verizon #s??
you type the number in then @vzwpix.com
I was looking for site for sending sms in my and other countries with low prices.I find websendsms.com , but can you suggest more sites?
hello ,
What are the email addresses for indian carriers?
Does this work with cspire
TxtDrop is a free service and you don’t have to know who the carrier is. http://www.txtdrop.com/
I kept texting an ATT number via email and the msg wasn’t going through. Figured out the message must be on the subject line of the email and not in the body.
how to find @——.com
mine one is not in the list above
the way i always did it was through yahoo chat. you just add the phone number in the contact like 5181234567 and then when u click on the contact it comes up as a link, click on it and a chat box opens up and you can txt for free
Can anyone know about how to send sms from my gmail account please rply me……..
IF I send a msg from my gmail acct to a cell phn as a text msg, will my gmail acct show up on their cell phone bill or will they now where it came from? I have a crush on this person and I don’t want their family to find out.
iwireless is #@iwirelesshometext.com
Thank you for posting this, this really helped me. You posted for MetroPCS and I needed that. Take care & keep schooling us. God Bless
how can u txt to a metro pcs phone???
Hi I was sending SMS to virgin mobile (Canada) using the format 10digitnumber@vmobile.ca ; so far it was working fine but since yesterday it is not working any more… can anyone help me? Has the gateway been changed? Plz help…
Its working fine now. I think the system was down for sometimes thats why the texts were not going through. Thanks all for the reply.
i did all of this with comcast and a yahoo account but it doesnt seem to work… can i do anything to fix it?
How does anyone send text messaging and pictures to SK telecom in Korea???
Thank you this was very helpful!!!
I think this is good info but im cofused lls
actually for virgin mobile you do number@yrmobl.com
Does anyone know how to send a text message to a “Telcel” Mexico cell phone?
How do I find out their carrier without calling each and asking?
I have 76 total to add so an efficient way to find out the carriers would be appreciated.
Thank you.
I have been sending my Husband e-mail/text msges from my pc/gmail to his at&t mobile fone, When I send attachments He only receives the text that is with it?? Also He says each msg/text I send comes from a different phone #? Can I change/fix this?
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continue with the the nice work on the site. Do like it! :p Could use some more frequent updates, but i am sure you got some better things to do like we all do.
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