Email to Text: How to Send Text Messages From Email (Step by Step Guide)

• Compose an email using Gmail, Outlook, or another email client.
• Send it to the configured SMS destination provided by your email-to-SMS service.
• The gateway converts the email into an SMS.
• The message is delivered to the recipient’s mobile phone through the carrier network.

If supported, the recipient can also reply to the SMS, with the response routed back to your email or messaging platform.

How to Send a Text From Email (Using TXTImpact)

TXTImpact provides an easy-to-use email-to-SMS gateway. Instead of switching to a separate messaging application, you can compose the message in your existing email client and let the gateway convert it into an SMS. 

Here’s how the process works: 

Step 1: Set up your TXTImpact account 

Enter your TXTImpact credentials and login to the TXTImpact Omnihub account if you’re an existing user. If you're a new user, set up your account by clicking the Create an account option.

Step 2: Set up and customize email-to-SMS settings 

To set up email-to-text settings on the TXTImpact dashboard, go to Manage Account → Manage Users, and click on the edit button for the existing user under Action from which you want to send an email. 

Click on Texting Profile, check the ‘Enable Email-to-Text’ checkbox, and click the ‘Save Text Profile’ button. 

Once enabled, you can easily customize the email-to-text settings and details, including the email subject template, email body template, and character limit, and click on the ‘SAVE TEXT PROFILE’ button to save the configuration. 

Step 3: Compose and send the email

Open your preferred email client, such as Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird, to compose an email and send email-to-text alerts. 

To send email-to-text with TXTImpact, compose the email content and format the recipient address in the ‘To’ field in this format → [email protected]. 

Make sure to keep the email body short, clear, and customer-friendly. 

Once you send the email, TXTImpact’s email-to-SMS gateway will process and convert the email into an SMS and deliver it to the respective recipients.

Step 4: Run a test campaign before launching

Before launching your email-to-text campaign, send a test email to your business number to confirm it works as expected. Check if 

• The message is delivered to the desired recipient 
• The message is not truncated 
• Attachments are included, if any

Configure Gmail-to-Text with TXTImpact 

Once the TXTImpact email-to-text settings are configured, you can easily send texts from your Gmail inbox by configuring Gmail as your email client. To do so, open your Gmail inbox to compose a new email, and set the recipient address in the ‘To’ field as shown in the image below. 

Configure Outlook-to-Text with TXTImpact 

Similarly, you can send texts from your Outlook inbox directly to customers’ phone numbers using Outlook-to-text messaging. 

Configure Outlook as your email client and set the required text forwarding rule. Once done, messages sent through Outlook can be delivered as SMS.

Can You Send a Text From Email Without Knowing the Carrier? 

When you use a dedicated email-to-SMS service, you generally do not need to know which mobile carrier the recipient uses. The service handles the carrier identification and routing in the background. 

With traditional carrier email-to-SMS gateways, you typically need to know the recipient’s carrier and use the corresponding carrier-specific gateway address. This makes the process inconvenient and difficult to manage at scale.

A dedicated email-to-SMS gateway, on the other hand, simplifies the process:

Your Email → Email-to-SMS Gateway → Recipient’s Carrier → Mobile Phone 

In most cases, you only need the recipient’s mobile number, and the gateway handles the technical routing and delivers the SMS through the appropriate carrier network. 

This is especially beneficial for businesses sending messages to customers across different carriers, making it easier to maintain a single email-to-SMS workflow instead of managing multiple carrier-specific gateway addresses.

Verizon Email-to-Text discontinued and the Best vText Alternative 

vText was Verizon’s legacy email-to-text functionality that allowed users to send an email to a Verizon mobile number and have it delivered as an SMS. The traditional format used the recipient’s 10-digit mobile number followed by @vtext.com. 

However, in late 2024, Verizon announced the discontinuation of its email-to-text service due to carrier changes and issues related to deliverability, delays, and carrier filtering,

However,vText is no longer a reliable option for email-to-SMS messaging. Verizon officially announced the shutdown of its legacy email-to-text functionality in late 2024 due to security and privacy concerns. 

While it was once a convenient way to send occasional texts from an email account without using a dedicated SMS platform, vText’s reliability has declined, particularly for automated and large-scale business messages. Verizon's current notice confirms that messages sent to vtext.com will no longer be supported after the shutdown.

So what’s the vText alternative? 

You can replace vText with a dedicated email-to-SMS service, like TXTImpact. Instead of sending an email to a Verizon-specific gateway address, you can send the message through a more reliable and secure TXTImpact email-to-SMS gateway. 

This approach removes the need to identify whether a recipient uses Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, or another carrier. The SMS provider handles the routing.

Why Businesses Must Replace Legacy Free Email-to-SMS Gateways? 

Similarly, Many Traditional  Free carrier email-to-SMS gateways providers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Telus,  Bell Canada, etc., have already discontinued their email-to-SMS service because of unreliable delivery, rising phishing, spam, and security threats, data security concerns, and a lack of scalability. 

Here’s why businesses must replace traditional, carrier-based email-to-text gateways:

• Carrier-specific routing is inconvenient as it requires businesses to know the recipient's mobile carrier, making it difficult to send messages to customers across multiple networks. 
• Many legacy gateways provide little or no information about whether a message was successfully delivered, lacking visibility and making it difficult to identify failed alerts or troubleshoot delivery problems. 
• Carrier gateways were primarily designed for simple email-to-text communication. Managing multiple carrier gateways, large recipient lists, and routing rules becomes difficult as message volume grows, lacking scalability. 
• Traditional carrier gateways may not provide a reliable two-way messaging workflow, which is necessary for interactive, two-way communication. 
• Legacy carrier gateways generally offer limited integration and automation options for connecting SMS with business systems such as CRMs, help desks, Messaging APIs, business applications, BAS and HVAC systems, and monitoring systems.

Moving to a dedicated email-to-SMS platform provides a more centralized and future-ready approach, while allowing businesses to continue using familiar email-based workflows. 

TXTImpact Email-to-Text vs Traditional Free Carrier Gateways 

Both TXTImpact email-to-SMS services and carrier Free email to text gateways allow you to send text messages from an email account, but they work differently. 

Carrier gateways rely on a specific mobile carrier's email-to-SMS address, while dedicated email-to-SMS services handle the routing and delivery for you.