How can you send an SMS to an email address?

[Windows Central Question]

There is a program at work where I need to send an SMS to an email address. It responds with a code. This apparently works on Android and iOS. There doensn't appear to be any place to set an email gateway in the SMS settings.

Is there a syntax in the SMS address that would allow me to send the message (like 36345:foo@microsoft.com) ?Any work aorund?

 

[rhapdog]

Okay, I'm going to tell you. This is possible, but must be supported by your Wireless Carrier. It is not dependent on what type of phone or phone OS you have. It took some researching to learn this for you, which is why it took me a while.

Simply enter the email address as the recipient, instead of a phone number. That's all there is to it. Not all carriers support it, but I just tested it with my AT&T account and it works fine. Most major carriers support this.

When the email is received on the other end, it will have an email address that your wireless carrier has assigned to your mobile number. If you send it to your own email, you'll discover that, and be able to give that email to others in order to text you as well.

First, I recommend testing it by sending yourself an email from your phone's SMS. Good luck!

 

[Ed Boland]

When the email is received on the other end, it will have an email address that your wireless carrier has assigned to your mobile number.

Yup! On AT&T, the email address is your phone number@txt.att.net

I just tried this by sending a text to the GF's phone via Outlook email on my PC. She got the text no problem, but it showed it on her phone as coming from a weird 6 digit number with a (401) area code. She was able to reply to the text, which I received in my email inbox. Pretty cool!

Now of course none of this will matter once they get the Windows 10/Skype messaging thing off the ground.