How to send text messages from Outlook to a cell phone
When I want to send myself reminders, sometimes I use Outlook 2007 or Outlook Web Access – OWA (but you can use any e-mail client) to send a Short Message Service (SMS) text message to my cell phone. For example, when I travel on Southwest and want to print my boarding pass. I send a text message with flight time and ticket confirmation number. If I am not in the office, I call a friend with my confirmation number and have them print out my boarding pass for me.
I do the same when I need to send SMS text messages to my friends because if I am in front of a computer, it is much easier to use Outlook to type a text message then to use my cell phone. Keep in mind that you are still limited to a total of 160 characters in the message subject plus the body and that even if you compose your message in HTML format, the carrier will send the message in plain ASCII text.
To send an SMS text message, simply compose the message in Outlook and then address it to the sender in the following format:
phone_number@carrier_domain
For example, if Bill Gates’ phone number is 425-555-1234 and he uses SprintPCs, you will send a message to:
4255551234@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Here are some of the common carriers.
Cingular: phonenumber@cingularme.com
Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
VoiceStream: phonenumber@voicestream.net
If for some reason you don’t want to use your Exchange account to send out SMS text messages in Outlook, you can add your POP3 account at Gmail, Yahoo, etc. and then use that account to send out text messages. Of course, you can do the reverse, send out messages from cell phone to your Outlook but most people who have SMS messaging available on their cell phone already know that. Sending out messages from Outlook to the cell phone is a relatively lesser-known fact.
Microsoft offers a Microsoft Outlook SMS Add-in for Outlook 2003/2007 that is supported on Windows 2003/XP/Vista. Of course, Microsoft is not going to create a piece of software and not have an acronym, that would be too un-cool. Therefore, Microsoft calls this add-in MOSA.
Microsoft has removed ability to send text messages to mobile phones through Outlook from all newer versions after 2010. Microsoft had this feature called OMS in Outlook 2007 and 2010 several years back but I don’t know why they removed this awesome feature from later version of Outlook.
@Ramesh: Microsoft has not removed the ability to send text messages from Outlook to mobile phones. I just sent (and received) a text message earlier today from Outlook 2019 and it worked just fine.
Hi @Zubair, did you need to do any special settings to allow the message get sent to your mobile phone?
@Joseph: There are no special settings that are needed on either the smartphone or Outlook. All you need is a mobile phone capable of receiving text messages.