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November 09, 2022

Need A Quick Response? Send an Email as Text

Not everybody checks their email multiple times a day—but most people check their text messages. So if you’re waiting for a quick response to your email, this can be frustrating. After all, even mobile email apps get ignored periodically throughout the day.

So, what do you do in a situation like this? Learn how to send an email as a text message, of course! Our step-by-step guide will walk you through sending an email as a text, as well as how to send an email from a text messaging app.

How to send an email as a text message. Sending an email as a text message is going to take a few steps to ensure it goes to the right place:

  • Compose your email in your typical email client. You don’t need to download any special extensions or additional apps to send an email to a phone number. You can get into your traditional email client and compose your message as you would with every traditional email.
  • Enter the recipient’s 10-digit phone number. Enter the recipient’s 10-digit phone number in the “To” field. Unfortunately, simply entering the number isn’t going to be enough for the message to reach the person to which you’re sending it. You’ll need to enter the correct gateway domain.
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  • Use the correct gateway domain. You will need to know the recipient’s mobile carrier to send an email as a text message. Nowadays, this seems to be something we know more often than we used to. It seems like we talk as much about which mobile carrier and internet provider we use as the shoes we wear and the cars we drive. Make sure you’re using the right gateway for either a simple text message (SMS – Short Message Service) or a photo (MMS – Multimedia Messaging Service). A photo sent through the SMS gateway domain will fail, so it’s crucial it’s sent through the MMS gateway domain.
  • Send your message. After you’ve entered the phone number with the correct gateway domain, you can send the message, and it’ll go directly to the recipient’s text message inbox. Your recipient can then respond to the message simply by replying as they would to a regular text message, and it will go to your inbox like an email.
“Not everybody checks their email multiple times a day—but most people check text messages.”

How to send an email from text message app. Most text messaging apps like iMessage (the standard messaging app on iPhones) let you seamlessly send messages as emails rather than texts without any special steps. Rather than entering the recipient’s phone number into the “To” field, you’re going to input their email address. If the recipient didn’t get the email, make sure they check their junk or spam folder. Many email clients will send messages sent from mobile carrier domains more frequently than those from other domains.

Why would you send an email instead of a text? Outside of urgency, sending emails as text messages can serve two purposes. First, you can archive the messages in your mailbox without taking up space on your phone. If you want your phone to save your text message, it’s going to take up space on your phone. It’s not unusual for your text messaging app to occupy the majority of your phone’s available space with saved messages, especially if you maintain a message archive forever. Second, if you’re sitting at a computer, you don’t have to step away to find your phone. Some text messaging apps like Facebook Messenger have desktop or browser integration that makes it easy to send messages, but this isn’t always the case. Sending an email via text can be a great way to get through to somebody when you’re not in a position to send a text message.

Now that you know how to send an email as a text message and vice versa, you’ll start enjoying much quicker response times. Need more email tips? Learn more about topics like how to forward an email, create a calendar event, or when to use encryption, how to manage spam, and more.

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