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Text messaging has become one of the most preferred methods of communication for many people. However, not many people know they can send a text message to a cell phone number from a computer through an email account.
If you need to send a text message to a recipient but cannot use your cell phone for whatever reason, you can use a computer to send the text via your email. Most cell phone carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile offer free Short Messaging Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) gateways that make it possible to send email and text messages back and forth.
The email will show up on the receiver’s phone as a text message, while you as the sender can also reply to an emailed text message, which will appear in your email inbox.
Send text messages from email to any phone number
Below is a step by step process you can follow to send text messages from your email to other AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile customers:
Step 1
Launch and log in to your preferred email client such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, or iCloud Mail.
Step 2
Enter the recipient’s 10-digit mobile phone number (including the area code) into the “To” field
Step 3
Add the SMS gateway address of the recipient’s service provider immediately after the mobile number. Verizon uses “@vtext.com,” T-Mobile uses “@tmomail.net.” and AT&T uses “@txt.att.net.” For example, if the phone number belongs to a T-Mobile subscriber with the phone number as (123) 456-7891, the email address would be “1234567891@tmomail.net”. For MMS, use “@vzwpix.com” after the phone number for Verizon, “@tmomail.net” for T-mobile, and “@mms.att.net” for AT&T.
Step 4
Click on “Compose” and draft the message you wish to send. Keep in mind that text messages are limited to 160 characters so consider the character limit while typing your message. Longer messages will be broken into multiple text messages. You may optionally enter a subject, which is also included in the 160 characters.
Step 5
Click the “Send” button to complete the process.
The recipient should receive the email on his cell phone in the form of a text.