Question

SMS on MY PC

  • 28 November 2023
  • 26 replies
  • 283 views

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I am a Tmobile user and would ;like ro beable to receive and send messages on my Windows PC deskop ?

Has anyone have any experience with that ?

-Ross 


26 replies

Userlevel 7
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I have had SIMs that allowed it but I think T-Mobile views it as a security problem.

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Thanks - What was SIMS ?  

does T-mobile offer that

I am if i could be web based 

Userlevel 7
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 What was SIMS ?  

 

Over the last 30 years, I’ve had maybe 20 different prepaid SIMs while traveling abroad or for testing in the US. If I had been able to remember which one offered this feature, I would have mentioned it. Sorry.

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Thanks. 

Userlevel 7
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Pulse SMS for Android can do that.  It requires a one-time $99 fee or a monthly fee.  

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If you are not using iMessage, you could also log in to the DIGITS portal. From there you can view your messages as well as send and receive. 

You can visit our Using DIGITS app or web client T-Mobile Support page to learn more about all the great stuff you can do with DIGITS. By the way, there is no extra charge for using DIGITS on your existing phone number. :D 

I use to be able to send SMS messages to many T-Mobile Chats. Nothing too big, usually way under 1MB. Then last year it stopped. I contacted T-Mobile and go the “Third Party” excuse. We spent about 2 hours trouble shooting. I had previously contacted COX and they were having no issues. I tried sending from various PCs to my iPhone, nothing. Then POOF it all started working again from my default email Outlook, and all was good, it went down again, and another 2 hours and back up. It has now been down for about a month and NO ONE from T-Mobile staff will answer with a solution I even sent a hard letter with dates and times that T-Mobile was trouble shooting, NEVER heard word one from the executives. I am about a week away from dumbing T-Mobile and go back to Verizon that I know works. T-Mobile just doesn’t care and I am just one customer, won’t be missed and easily replaced.

This is what I last sent: 

I have spent multiple hours with COX, Microsoft, and T-Mobile and all are pushing the issue troubles to Apple. I was on the phone with Apple today trouble shooting my iPhone to no avail. Yesterday Marcus Watley tried many things and the end result was “Sorry not a T-Mobile issue” and they closed the ticket. Microsoft reviewed my PC to ensure all the settings were correct and Outlook was up to date and functioning.

 

The last ones I talked to was Apple, and they turned it back on the carrier, T-Mobile. The tech explained it simply. “PC to SMS text is a carriers addition as to what they provide. Just like Verizon provides as well at AT&T. Apple has zero control over PC to SMS Text as it is a carrier function.” That makes sense to me.

 

So it appears that T-Mobile gives instructions on the Internet as to how to perform this function. I have been doing it for years and it stopped working so there is an issue and all roads lead to T-Mobile.

 

Will my new carrier be better? I have no clue but hope so. In any case we will be switching here soon as soon as I am done with my research and reviews from friends that have various carriers.

 

I am but one customer that won’t be missed and easily replaced. I thought I had made a good decision but when a usable issue doesn’t work and there is only blame to others, it is time to leave.

 

Thanks for your help, but I have to do what I have to do.

Userlevel 7
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I use to be able to send SMS messages to many T-Mobile Chats. Nothing too big, usually way under 1MB. Then last year it stopped. I contacted T-Mobile and go the “Third Party” excuse. We spent about 2 hours trouble shooting. I had previously contacted COX and they were having no issues. I tried sending from various PCs to my iPhone, nothing. Then POOF it all started working again from my default email Outlook, and all was good, it went down again, and another 2 hours and back up. It has now been down for about a month and NO ONE from T-Mobile staff will answer with a solution I even sent a hard letter with dates and times that T-Mobile was trouble shooting, NEVER heard word one from the executives. I am about a week away from dumbing T-Mobile and go back to Verizon that I know works. T-Mobile just doesn’t care and I am just one customer, won’t be missed and easily replaced.

This is what I last sent: 

I have spent multiple hours with COX, Microsoft, and T-Mobile and all are pushing the issue troubles to Apple. I was on the phone with Apple today trouble shooting my iPhone to no avail. Yesterday Marcus Watley tried many things and the end result was “Sorry not a T-Mobile issue” and they closed the ticket. Microsoft reviewed my PC to ensure all the settings were correct and Outlook was up to date and functioning.

 

The last ones I talked to was Apple, and they turned it back on the carrier, T-Mobile. The tech explained it simply. “PC to SMS text is a carriers addition as to what they provide. Just like Verizon provides as well at AT&T. Apple has zero control over PC to SMS Text as it is a carrier function.” That makes sense to me.

 

So it appears that T-Mobile gives instructions on the Internet as to how to perform this function. I have been doing it for years and it stopped working so there is an issue and all roads lead to T-Mobile.

 

Will my new carrier be better? I have no clue but hope so. In any case we will be switching here soon as soon as I am done with my research and reviews from friends that have various carriers.

 

I am but one customer that won’t be missed and easily replaced. I thought I had made a good decision but when a usable issue doesn’t work and there is only blame to others, it is time to leave.

 

Thanks for your help, but I have to do what I have to do.

Hey there. It sounds like you are talking about sending emails to your phone using the @tmomail.net method. Is that right?

When it stops working are you getting some kind of error message or does the message show sent on your email and just never shows up on your phone? 

No error messages at all. I just type the phone number, that I know is correct both mine and my wife’s using @tmomail.net. I have both numbers in contact list and know they are correct. I send them through Outlook that MS states it is performing correctly as they had access to my PC and made sure all was functioning and up to dat. Once I type in where I want to send it I add a picture, documents, etc. non of which never make a MB in size. I have even tested by just typing a sentence in the body. I then select Send, and my outbox shows sent. After that I have no idea where it is. I never get any error messages, Undeliverable, nothing. I send it and it is just gone. Previously it was a week to week thing. It would go and then received. for the past month it hasn’t worked at all. Not thrilled paying for a service that has a application that should work, has worked intermittently but now nothing. If you check my account you will see that it really got bad around January and was getting worse, unpredictable, and I was never sure if anyone got stuff I sent. I didn’t not realize just how much I used this feature until I was told basically “Oh well not T-Mobile issue, sorry for the inconvenience.” 

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The tmomail.net function is a really low capability service, and it has become a target for many scammers over the years. Due to that, there are a lot of filters in place to try and prevent bad activity and protect our customers. Normally, if your message is caught in that filter, you will get some kind of notification on the sending email that the message was blocked or failed to send for some reason. Since you are not getting any kind of error or notification, I would be curious to try it to a phone number that is not on your account. Have you tried to send to someone else on T-Mobile that is not connected to your own account? 

I have already done the test to not only other numbers not connected to my account. I have tried with friends that have Verizon, AT & T, etc. just to make sure it wasn’t just our phones. So it appears that T-Mobile has pulled out a new “reason” for not being able to repair my issue. As a retired Police Detective I have trouble buying “to prevent scammers”. E-mails carry a lot more sensitive information and are more likely to be hacked. I have rarely recieved scam SMS messages and most are just insurance scams so I block the #. 

It appears that a service that is included with instruction on how to use it are on your web site but yet looking for a way out, I have until the third to decide to stay or leave.

Userlevel 7
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Awesome that you already thought to test some other numbers. Did it work to the other T-Mobile numbers? How about to the Verizon, AT&T, etc.?

No, it didn’t work with any carrier. Not only did I try different carriers but I tried it from my G-mail account with different UN, Windows Mail, MS Web Outlook, and COX Webmail….nothing they all get sent but never arrive. I tried this many times since it started acting up. I have friends that are not in my contact list, in fact some live out of state. No matter what I try, on my side, they all show it as sent, but no one receives them.

I am pretty tech savvy and PC as well, Before I call anyone for technical help I go though all the tests I can think of. It is just surprising that since I had T-Mobil it worked fine and I used it 5-6 times a day as a lot of people don’t look at their emails but do look at SMS messages. Then in January it was a hit and miss, some would be delivered some weren't. A tech checked into things and it started working, not every time but it was working. Then about a month or so ago, I repeated all the tests that previous techs have told me to try but it has never come back up. Looks like a lost cause and I have been checking Verizon that I was with for over 30 years to come to T-Mobile, guess one of those bad decisions people make in life.

I know the work around. Send an email from my pc to myself. The email will show on my iPhone, then I save what was sent to me and then do a phone to phone SMS message to get the message, pictures, documents, etc. to who needed them. If T-Mobile PC to Phone doesn’t work at all they should take down the interne instructions on how to do it.

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You really have gone all out on testing, and I appreciate that. I know how frustrating it is when something you rely on doesn’t work. I am asking a few more questions just so I fully understand and can help find the missing link. There are so many variables, so we want to take things step by step to eliminate the stuff that is working and find the broken link. 

You mention a bunch of different email clients, but are you using the same Gmail on all these clients, or do you have a Gmail, COX email account, Microsoft email account, etc?

 

My primary email server is Outlook. This what I used to try to send SMS from PC.The only reason you see G-mail that I tried was becasue I wanted to try all avenues to try to send an SMS to my phone. In ,y testing in the Compose To: I uses 7022869062@tmomail.net in my attempts to send myself an SMS from Outlook, G-mail, Cox Webmail, and Outlook web. I used the same address and all the places I sent the messge from (Outlook, Gmail, COX Webmail, and Outlook web) and all of them showed the SMS were sent, but I never got any of them on my phone, they just vanished after being sent. Yes I can go to Gmail and send from there, as well as MS I have a subscriotion to MS Office that includes Outlook and MS Outlook on the web and I have tried them all.

Carrier Email-to-SMS Email-to-MMS
AT&T number@txt.att.net number@mms.att.net
Sprint number@pm.sprint.com number@pm.sprint.com
T-Mobile number@tmomail.net number@tmomail.net
Verizon Wireless number@vtext.com number@vzwpix.com
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I used the same address and all the places I sent the messge from (Outlook, Gmail, COX Webmail, and Outlook web)

Since you are using the same address in all the different clients, the next thing we would want to try is a completely different email address to send the message. There are many options for free email out there and since you are already using many of the different platforms, you can choose one to create a brand-new email to send from. I would start out with a really simple email address that does not include words like “test account”, “email”, “info”, “admin”, “automated”, etc. Those types of email addresses get caught by spam filters and I don’t want you to run into an issue like that while trying to do this test. 

Already done. I have 2 Gmail addresses, wife has 1 I have two COX email addresses. I tried sending a SMS message to myself, wife, son and a few friends using all the emails I have available as me but like I said. I tried everything that I was pretty sure T-Mobile would ask me to do prior to my initial contact concerninh this matter.

Basically it has come down to this, T-Moble really has no explanation for this and we are both just going through a series of guessing games hoping something changes. That being the case that you do not know and I do not know I guess we will leave it at that and I will just change carriers and solve T-Mobiles issue.

 

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Ok. thank you for clarifying that you used different emails as well as sending to different phone numbers. I am sorry if you feel like you have to repeat yourself on this. I just like to make sure I am fully understanding and looking at it closely to avoid any possible oversight. You did really well eliminating the possibility of the email addresses and the phone numbers as the problems. You said you tried just short text and included files or pictures, so that rules out size. I think the weirdest thing on this one is that you are not getting any kind of kick back about the messages that you are sending. Once you send the message out, on the backend of any messaging system (email or text) there are a lot of pings back and forth to verify the packets are being sent and received along the way. Examples can be failed to send, undeliverable, dropped packet, and even unable to send because of different filters. You are getting none of those and they are really the most helpful thing to help figure out why a message may not be successful. 

You did mention T-Mobile PC earlier and I think that is one of the last things we haven’t covered so far. I am sorry if this seems like a silly question, but what did you mean by T-Mobile PC? Are you sending all of these messages from the same computer? 

One other thought. Have you tried sending a text from your phone to your email address to see if that works, or if it kicks back an error?

Ok. I will try to clarify that “T-Mobile PC” must have been a typo and no, it doesn’t make sense to me. I have tried sending from my laptop, desktop, and wifes iPad with the same results. I have never recieved any kickback on any device I used. The only thing I receive after I send SMS from the devices is that the SMS shows up in the Sent Items box as “Sent” on the PC.If something doesn;t send it usually winds up in the Draft box. This never occurred with my attempt to send a SMS / Picture / .PDF Doc. from any od my available computers to mine and other phones as a SMS.  I just tried a simple SMS from my laptop to 7022869062@tmomail.net with a 111kb size. I could send you a small snapshot to show you what I see after I send, will this allow me to attach a screenshot?

 

 

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Thank you for letting me know that you already tested on different devices as well as different emails. We know that email to text is not working for you and not giving an error message. Thanks for sharing the screenshot.

I am curious if text to email does work. Can you please try to send a message from your text to your cox.net email address?

I just tried sending from PC to phone, no luck. Phone to phone works fine. I have given up all hope with T-mobile and it is between COX Mobile and back to Verion. As of payment due date in late June T-mobile will no longer be our phone carrier. This has been going on and off since January and no end in sight, tired of it.

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I really appreciate your willingness to troubleshoot with me to try and find the issue. 

I meant for you to test phone to PC to see if the messages worked the other way. 

I have done that several times but I just did it again. I sent a SMS text to my laptop (Rickhart@cox.net) and also to my desktop (Rickhart@cox.net.) I also sent it to my laptop to my Google Mail (1easyputter@gmail.com) and neither my laptop or desktop received anything. I then did the same thing with my wifes iPhone with the same results, not received on laptop, desktop, and wifes iPad.

Hopeless cause…..It isn’t going to work no matter what I do. I never realized just how much I used it, until it stopped working. Sort of buying all new phones to the tune of $1000.00, not going to happen, I have tried everything. I stopped at COX and Verionand  they both sent me a SMS from their e-mail computer like I have been doing and received them all fine. 

So it looks like it will either be COX or Verizon since T-Mobile doesn’t work and no viable answers

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I have been doing all the same tests that you have on my personal computer and phone and they are all working fine, so I know that the T-Mobile email-to-text service in general is working as intended. If it wasn’t working for me or we had some kind of outage, or if we stopped the service all together, I would have told you that days ago. I know I’ve said it before, but I really do appreciate you working through all of it with me. At this point I would suggest filing a ticket for our IT teams to take a look at the routing of the messages to see where in the path they get snagged. I suggest reaching out to our T-Force team by sending a direct message to T-Mobile using the Facebook or X icons at the bottom of this screen. You should be able to share a link to this conversation with them so they can see all the hard work you have put in. They can also review your account details and then file a ticket for tmomail receive fail. They might have a few additional questions to fill out the ticket, but I am sure they will get you squared away quick and easy.

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