Although most everyone can access their email these days on their smartphone, there are still times when you would rather send an email message as a text for faster delivery. This works for when you want to email someone who doesn’t have a smartphone, or when you want to send a text from your computer.

If you have a short email that you want to send, but want it delivered to the person’s phone as a text message, you can use the email to SMS gateway system. You just need to know their phone number and service provider (carrier) so you can find the correct gateway address to use in forwarding your message. Here’s how you do it:

How To Send a Short Email as an SMS

1. Log onto your email account and type out your email as usual on either your smartphone or computer.

2. In the recipient box, rather than typing in an email address, enter the recipient’s 10-digit phone number.

3. After you’ve entered the phone number you want to send the email to: “[Insert 10-digit number]”, tack on the correct “@gateway” address at the tail end of it and you are on your way to sending email to text. Just an FYI, not all large messages will go through vis SMS, so you will need to use the MMS gateway. Below is a list of some of the more commonly used service providers (carriers) in the United States along with their gateway addresses.

If your email is made up of more than 160 characters, you will need to use the Multimedia Message Service (MMS) to send it. Keep in mind that if the individual you’re messaging doesn’t in fact have Multimedia Messaging on their messaging plan, they won’t be able to get your message. Most carriers do have email to MMS gateway addresses as seen above in the table. So, if your message does have over 160 characters, just use their MMS gateway address rather than their SMS gateway address.