I switched to SMS notification because the normal mail client’s scheduled checks for notifications left a lot to be desired. What if an email arrived mere minutes after one check and didn’t notify me until the next scheduled check hours later? What if one of these emails was urgent and required a timely response? Why would I waste battery life on checking for mail when my phone already uses it to constantly check for SMS messages? Thoughts of my device having to constantly perform scheduled checks with mail servers is the kind of thing that kept me up at night. But no more!

Free Gmail SMS Alerts Discontinued

As of writing this Google has discontinued offering the service of SMS text alerts for email in any free capacity. However, even if you Google “Email SMS notifications” now you are still bombarded with an array of ever changing (read: outdated) hacks of their various free services. Of course, there are many services out there that will allow you this feature provided you pay, but what if I told you that you are already paying for this service?

An Unlikely Hero

Without further suspense I introduce the unlikely hero in our story: your major cell carrier. The cog in the machine for all of these services is an SMS gateway;  this allows for the sending and receiving of texts through the mobile phone network. A premium service simply receives the email, parses the email into a more readable SMS format and then sends the text to the intended phone through their SMS gateway into the vast mobile network ether. You pay for premium services to format your emails into a more readable format and use their gateways. But you are already paying to use your cell carrier’s SMS gateways and they have been quietly providing access to gateways that support Email-to-SMS conversion to anyone under contract.

Setup

Major cell carriers have most likely already set you up with a static email address linked to your phone number (not your device or any email client). Below is this wiki table of the major US-based cell carriers and their associated gateways:

US Carriers SMS Gateways

Discern Your Cell Phone’s Associated Email

You can easily discern your associated email using your phone number and the table above by following the simple format:
[10-digit phone number]@[carrier gateway domain]

Ex: If your phone number is 555-555-5555 on Verizon Wireless, your email is 5555555555@vtext.com

You should test your setup by sending an email to that address and promptly receiving an SMS text on the phone associated to that phone number.

Setting Up Email Forwarders

Now you only have to setup forwarding from your email of choice to the email your carrier provides your number. Depending on your email client this setup will differ but there are instructions to be found online for all major email clients. If your hosting provider uses cPanel, you can navigate to set up a forwarder like so:

cPanel Navigation

Any emails should now be forwarded to that middleman email and then converted automatically to SMS and sent to your phone from your carrier. Below are some more notes on this solution:

• Stability and longevity from piggybacking on system of major cell providers
• Easy to discern new email address and change forwarding when switching cell providers
• Counts towards any SMS limits but no extra charges outside normal SMS charges
• Long emails will be broken up into multiple 160-character texts until limit is reached (avg: 5)
• No inherent formatting options, must receive “from”, “subject” and “message” in entirety*

*Check my post here for a guide to formatting the SMS notifications to your liking with a little scripting know-how.