Many cellular carriers assign email addresses to cellular phone numbers and support SMS or text messaging by email. You don't need to install special add-ins in Outlook to send text messages, but the recipient will need text messaging enabled on their cellular plan (most carriers enable it by default) and have a phone capable of receiving text messages (most new phones are text-capable).
To use, compose a short email message using less than 160 total characters in Outlook (or any email client) and address it to the cellular number at the carrier's email domain. Remember to remove your signature from the message before sending. Note that some carriers will break apart larger messages into 160 character messages, others will deliver only the first 160 characters.
The phones only support plain text messages but the carriers strip multipart HTML, so you don't need to remember to switch to plain text format.
Email sent to cell phones is billed to the subscriber as a text message.
See Tools below for add-ins that can send SMS to phone numbers.
US Cellphones
The major US cellular carriers use the 10_digit_number@cell.carrier_domain.com format for SMS to text capable cell phones, with a limit of 160 characters in the subject and message body (total).
| Carrier | Send Email to phonenumber@.... |
|---|---|
| Alltel | @message.alltel.com |
| AT&T | @txt.att.net |
| Nextel | @messaging.nextel.com |
| Sprint | @messaging.sprintpcs.com |
| SunCom | @tms.suncom.com |
| T-mobile | @tmomail.net |
| VoiceStream | @voicestream.net |
| Verizon | @vtext.com (text only) |
| Verizon | @vzwpix.com (pictures and videos) |
Verizon users can register an alias at vtext.com to give out instead of their phone number. Both alias@vtext.com and phone_number@vtext.com will be valid addresses for the phone.
If you don't know the carrier, enter the number in 123-456-7890 format at Reverse phone number lookup.
Web Based Interfaces
If you know the phone number and carrier, you may be able to send SMS from a web page.
Verizon //www.vtext.com
SMS Utilities and Services
Appointment Reminder is an Outlook Addin that allows you to schedule sms appointment reminders direct from Outlook Calendar. |
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Send and receive text messages instantly from your email account with the Textmagic secure Email to SMS service. |
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Enables any version of Outlook to send SMS messages to mobile phone numbers listed in Outlook contacts and generate SMS appointment reminders automatically. Can also handle SMS replies back to your Inbox. Product consists of an Outlook add-in plus a service to generate the SMS messages. Does not trigger Outlook security prompts. A Lotus Notes version, NotesSMS, is also available. |
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Red Oxygen Office SMS add-in allows you to send text messages from Microsoft Outlook 2013. Messages are sent from Outlook just like emails, but are delivered to phones as text messages. Replies are delivered to your Outlook Inbox as emails (or to your mobile device). Office SMS can scan your Outlook calendar and automatically send appointment reminders and notifications to your cell phone as text messages. Recurring reminders are fully supported. |
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Service and software that allows you to send SMS messages from within Outlook, use rules to forward incoming email messages to SMS with optional text compression, and send reminders to SMS. Tracks sent SMS messages in the Journal folder. Also available in a 2-way version that allows you to read SMS replies from your desktop. |
More Information
For a list of Outlook and Exchange Server SMS tools to forward reminders to your cellular phone, see
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42 Comments on "Send SMS or Text Messages to Cellular phones"
is there anyway we can block for people to reply? I'd like to just send text reminders without people replying back. Do you know if it will reply to all?
I'm not aware of a way to prevent replies - if the messages are sent to a group, they would be able to reply to all. You'd need to send to individual people or use the BCC field.
If you receive an email or instant message from someone you don't know, what's the best thing to do?
Ignore or delete it. If they send attachments, do not open them. if they send links to attachments, do not click. If you receive an email that says you need to reset a password, type the url to the site in the browser and check it out (if its legit, the site should make you change the password). You can drag the message to the junk mail folder and view the message as plain text - this makes it easy to see the actual URLs.
Hi Diane, until today, I've been successfully receiving/replying to SMS in Outlook 2010 (via hosted MS Exchange Service). I've got android phone Galaxy Note 5, with ATT mobile service. Don't know how this got set up, but it just worked. (No third party OMS.) I cleared passwords and cache on my computer yesterday. I'm still receiving SMS, but when I reply in Outlook 2010 it asks me to set up an OMS account. Any solution?
Some exchange servers have sms capability. I'd check with the exchange admin to see if you need to do something to log in to it.
Thank you. Tried that. Host said what I was describing was not something they offered. (They have an SMS notification option, but said it sends an sms to your phone when you get an email - the opposite of what I had.) Tried ATT, and got the same response. But it WAS working seamlessly, with no third party. ::Sigh:: Never should have cleared the cache.
I havent been able to text using outlook
if you want to use SMS, you need to subscribe to an SMS service - outlook can only send email to the phone's address, which is in the-number@carrier format.
what happens when you send a short email to a cell phone at the-number@carrier address? (You need to know their cell provider.)
how do I send a text to a phone my friend has and i dont know his carrier.
You'll need to either ask your friend who his carrier is or try a lookup on the phone number at a reverse look up site. Many will include the service that "owns" the 3 digit city code. However, with number portability, this isn't always correct.
is there a way to send without needing to know the carrier of the receiver?
You'd need a subscription to a sms service.
is there any way to increase the amount of characters on the text
No, sorry. The text length is a limitation of SMS messaging. some companies will send the excess text in additional text messages but others drop it.
I agree with the thing that SMS counts to 160 characters...as I know and have my knowledge if message goes beyond 160 characters it will count not as one but in two messages....how carriers cut message and make it under 160?
it's coded into the sms server. After 16 characters, they cut it and make a new message.