Sending a text message to an email account

I have sent many emails to cellphones as text messages, but never the other way around. My daughter has sent me emails this way before, so I knew it was possible. She said all you have to do is enter the email instead of the phone number.  I tried this on my N95, but the message client would not accept an email address as the number.

Intially, I thought it was a software issue, but it is not. It took me a good part of the day to figure this out and I thought I’d share my findings. I was very surprised how hard it was to find this information!

Apparently, for Verizon customers, like my kid, you can just use the email address. It doesn’t work that way for ATT and has to do with their “SMS-to-Email gateway”.

Of course, one of the things I tried was to send myself a text message from my email account and see what number it came from. Well, it ends up being this weird 10-digit number. I found that I could successfully reply to it, but I’m guessing it’s only a temporary achievement based on the original message and would eventually stop working.

What you have to do is send a message that begins with the email address followed by a space to a special 3-digit number for the ATT SMS-to-Email gateway, either 111 or 121. Supposedly it depends on your area of the US: 111 (e.g., North Carolina) or 121 (e.g., San Francisco Bay Area). I live in LA and 121 worked for me.

For example: Send a text message to 121 with the body of the text message like “me@gmail.com This message will go to my email account.”

I use my email inbox for important “To-Do’s” and this is a great way to add to the list. A great time saver is to set up a template with your email address followed by a space. Also, I set up a Contact named ptw with the 121 mobile number. It’s easier to type ptw than 121 on the keypad. I only wish you could add a subject line, but it’s always blank.

I gleaned most of this info from here and here