How to send SMS text message from PC to cell phone?

May 26, 2021 8:24 PM

I am just off of Google Voice, used it for a number of years but it was continually going south. I've kept that same number, with Verizon temporarily but will change Mint Mobile. But neither Verizon nor Mint have a pc app, and I absolutely loathe attempting clear typing on stupidly small iPhone keyboard, and Siri is pretty much brain-dead, always misses something that I've got to wade in with my big fat fumble fingers and try to fix.

Is there a way I can send SMS text msgs through my pc? (I do have an iPad with bluetooth keyboard and that helps some but I don't have it with me everywhere.) I want to send SMS (pics would be nice but not needed) I want to send SMS and not have my phone number nor my contacts phone numbers harvested off by whatever app it is -- does this exist? A relatively brief scurry around online gave me a lot of dead links plus a lot of sites that look and feel really scurvy, can almost feel them sending scuzz spam.

Help?

posted by dancestoblue to Computers & Internet (25 answers total)

If you know the recipient's carrier, you may be able to email them by using their phone number and adding
@txt.att.net - AT&T
@vtext.com - Verizon
@tmomail.net - T Mobile
I'd test it out first to make sure it works.
posted by soelo at 8:46 PM on May 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Is generic texting (non SMS okay?) I haven't tried it but apparently signal has a PC app. However, the PC app does not send SMS messages.
posted by oceano at 8:55 PM on May 26, 2021

With an iPhone and a Mac you can do this via the Continuity feature (but your phone has to be nearby). As someone who prefers to type on a keyboard it's very handy. It doesn't work with Windows, of course.
posted by neckro23 at 8:57 PM on May 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

messages.google.com? It's not 100% clear if you have a iPhone or an Android phone, but that's what I use on my pixel.
posted by sagc at 9:08 PM on May 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

Dell has a (IME) glitchy app that does this for iPhones, Dell Mobile Connect
posted by MattD at 9:11 PM on May 26, 2021

Seconding sagc—if you've got an Android phone, set up Messages (Google's app) as your SMS app and then go to messages.google.com in your computer browser. It'll have you scan a QR code to connect it to your phone.

I got into the habit of always texting on my computer when I had an iPhone (which integrated with Messages on my Mac, and I have to say the Google solution isn't as good—no native app and it doesn't do a great job of staying connected, so I have to scan my QR code in more than I'd like. But it definitely works and it's way better than having to be on my phone all the time. (On post I noticed you specified iPhone—sorry, should have caught that.)
posted by Polycarp at 9:29 PM on May 26, 2021

Response by poster: Just fyi -- iPhone 11, 2020 iPad, Linux Mint on Dell Laptop, have WIN10 on it also but never, ever use it, really like Linux Mint.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:52 PM on May 26, 2021

Response by poster: Also: A five year old beater Android used when roughing it IE bike rides in rain etc, but it is old old old and primitive and slow etc.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:58 PM on May 26, 2021

Ah, I think you'll have trouble, then. I believe Apple has a much more locked-down model for access to text messages; without an Apple laptop, and therefore access to Continuity/iMessage, there's not much you can do.
posted by sagc at 10:07 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Your country probably has something like this http://www.silentcom.co.nz/
I used it when I lived somewhere with no cell access.
posted by unearthed at 12:04 AM on May 27, 2021

Unfortunately, the desktop app for Signal can only send messages to people who also have Signal. So it can't be used to send an SMS.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:08 AM on May 27, 2021

Surprisingly capable beater Android phones can be had new on eBay for not much money. I recently bought this Umidigi A7S for a whisker under AU$100 on special. Nice vanilla Android 10 Go and already had several manufacturer updates, which I would not have expected for a shit-grade phone. No speed demon but no slouch either. Pretty cheap ticket out of Apple's members-only convenience prison. You could just leave it sitting in your laptop bag.
posted by flabdablet at 2:42 AM on May 27, 2021

Buy a cheap Android phone and use Pushhbullet.
posted by kschang at 3:38 AM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I...feel this. I’ve been looking at options myself. Would a smallish bluetooth keyboard for your iphone work? I’ve been considering getting one that has a channel to hold a phone upright, like this, though there may be smaller ones. There used to be physical-keyboard cases for iphones, but they mostly seem to have fallen out of favor.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:07 AM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

When using an Android phone, you could try KDEconnect or its Gnome counterpart GSConnect.
Success not guaranteed, but some people report that one of these works well for them.

KDEconnect is in your repos.
GSConnect is here: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:13 AM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

On Android there are countless ways to do this. The easiest is to use Google Messages on your phone and go to message.google.com on any laptop. It's completely free.

This may also work on iOS but I don't know for sure as I don't have an iPhone. Is Google Messages available for iPhone? If so, I imagine it would work.

Other means on Android, but they involve costs:

MightyText
Pushbulllet
Pulse SMS
AirDroid
etc.
posted by dobbs at 6:54 AM on May 27, 2021

FWIW, although you can try the carrier gateways as soelo suggests, I block receipt of text messages from e-mail addresses because they're always spam, so that might not work out in practice.

I do sympathize about preferring a proper keyboard.
posted by adamrice at 6:56 AM on May 27, 2021

I think finding a solution that works with iMessage and Linux is the trickier part here. If you're not finding anything, you may also want to consider a non-SMS messaging app that is compatible with iOS, Android, and Linux. I can't think of one option that stands above the rest, but a few options are Slack, GroupMe, Telegram, Signal, Element/Matrix, Rocket.Chat, and MatterMost. Among these options Element/Matrix, Rocket.Chat, and MatterMost are probably the more open source and privacy focused options.

Convincing other people to migrate to another messaging app can be close to impossible though, so I apologize if this isn't particularly what you're looking for.
posted by mundo at 7:01 AM on May 27, 2021

I use Android and Windows, and I find the Windows Your Phone app works very well for this.
posted by SNACKeR at 7:22 AM on May 27, 2021

you may also want to consider a non-SMS messaging app that is compatible with iOS, Android, and Linux. I can't think of one option that stands above the rest

I can. Keybase works on iOS, Android, Linux, Windows and Mac OS, the clients are free as in speech and beer, it has smooth multi-device sync that Just Works and means you're not regularly having to trust other people's new devices as a matter of course. Nothing else I've used works as well.

Eager for the day when some crew of clever-clogs forks it and makes it run on a federation of arbitrary servers instead of Keybase's proprietary ones (especially since the Zoom acquisition), but until then I'm quite happy with it as-is.
posted by flabdablet at 7:53 AM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

just addressing one small aspect of your question (and not the main one, sorry). I can't manage the iPhone's tiny keyboard either but I dictate nearly all of my text messages now using the dictation feature and it's saved me a lot of hassle. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.
posted by jessamyn at 8:32 AM on May 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

There is talk to text. I was surprised it has been sitting there on the side of every text I have made on this Samsung phone.
posted by Oyéah at 8:50 AM on May 27, 2021

You noted issues with using Siri. I also don't like using it, but I found with repeated use and correction it learns to understand me much better. In my experience after about two weeks the number of corrections it needed dropped significantly. I still don't like using it but it mostly works now for both headset and straight to the phone. You don't always have to type corrections - after you issue it a command you can use "correct x for y" or "Add ! [or other punctuation or more info) at X" or "I meant abc, illinois". Voice Control is under the assistive accessibility features and will provide a host of ways to issue verbal commands.

You can also retrain Siri by going to Siri & Search > Listen for "Hey Siri," and then doin the old turn it off and then back on. The key is to do this in the environment where you might actually be using voice to text.

Finally you can change how Siri responds and it's visualization so everything appears on the screen, instead of the that ball thing. Go to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Responses then Always Show Siri Captions. And you can set Siri to always respond by voice, which is found in the Spoken Responses section, and select Always.
posted by zenon at 9:10 AM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

The dictation feature, mentioned above, has been fabulous for my fat fingers. It takes a bit to remember to use it but once you do, it’s a handy little tool.
posted by pearlybob at 2:23 PM on May 27, 2021

Soleo's solution has always worked for me. You can also send pictures by just using MMS instead. Just send a text with a picture to your email with your phone to get the address.

With SMS remember that your messages have to be short or they will be broken up into a bunch of texts.
They can be longer with the MMS address. It works for me for both my apple and android devices.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:57 PM on May 27, 2021