E-mail to SMS and SMS to E-mail

This guide explains how you can setup Ozeki SMS gateway to act as an e-mail client. This setup offers both e-mail to sms and sms to e-mail forwarding. For e-mail to SMS forwarding Ozeki will download e-mail messages from an e-mail server (using the POP3 or IMAP protocol) periodically, and it will send these e-mails as SMS messages to mobile phones. For SMS to e-mail forwarding Ozeki will accept incoming SMS messages from the mobile network and will forward these to an e-mail address (using the SMTP protocol).

How to forward E-mail to SMS and SMS to E-mail (Quick steps)

To forward E-mail to SMS and SMS to E-mail:

  1. Launch Ozeki SMS Gateway
  2. Add new SMTP connection
  3. Configure connection
  4. Enable connection
  5. Send test SMS
  6. Install POP3 or IMAP service
  7. Provide routing
  8. Send test e-mail
  9. Check the logs

Part 1: SMS to E-mail using SMTP

This solution consists of two parts. The first part is the SMS to E-mail forwarding. If you look at Figure 1, you will see the route of the message. The blue arrow shows you how the SMS comes in from the mobile network, and how it is sent e-mail client (such as Outlook) through an E-mail server using the SMTP protocol.

system architecture of the sms through email function
Figure 1 - System architecture of the SMS through Email function

If you only want to create SMS to E-mail forwarding, and you are not interested in the other direction (E-mail to SMS), you can continue by reading the following guide. If you want to do both directions, skip this guide, and jump to Part 2.

How to setup SMS to e-mail forwarding using SMTP

Part 2: E-mail to SMS using POP3 or IMAP

The second part is the E-mail to SMS forwarding. In this part Ozeki 10 downloads the E-mail messages (to be forwarded as SMS) from the E-mail server using the POP3 or IMAP protocol. When the e-mail is downloaded, it is forwarded to the mobile network as SMS. Take a look at Figure 2, and see the green arrow, that shows how the message is handled.

incoming email sent as sms
Figure 2 - Incoming email sent as SMS

Although Figure 2 explains the procedure using the POP3 protocol, you have two choices. You can use POP3 or IMAP depending on what your E-mail server supports. Read one of the following guides to get detailed setup instructions for configuring E-mail to SMS forwarding.

How to setup e-mail to SMS forwarding using IMAP

How to setup e-mail to SMS forwarding using POP3

More information