Receive Email Notifications with Email to SMS

Email to SMS can be used to receive notifications about incoming email according to criteria you define. Here’s how you can get alerts sent to your mobile…

Email to SMS relies on the SMTP API functionality. SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is what virtually all email clients use to send email from one computer to another. That being said, let’s have a look at a very easy way you can use email to SMS to receive notifications about important emails that arrive in your inbox.

Step 1: Create Your Batch File

So what’s a batch file? A batch file, with the .bat extension, is a file that was pretty popular back in the days when the Windows operating system was installed on top of MS-DOS. While MS-DOS has been phased out by Microsoft, its shell version is still present in what is formally known as the ‘Windows Command Processor’. Batch files are executable, which means you can put a series of commands in it and, when run, will process those commands one after the other.

For the purpose of our email to SMS script, we’re going to create a batch file, one for each notification you want to receive. For instance, if you want to receive a text message when your mother emails you and when your boss emails you, then you’ll create two files, one for each. Here’s what to do:

1. Open notepad
2. Copy and paste the following string into the open notepad session:

bmail -s your.outgoing_mailserver.com -h -t sms@messaging.clickatell.com -f your_address@your_domain.com –m Mom.txt –d

1. Save the file as mom.bat or boss.bat (or whatever else you want) in a very easy to find location.
2. If you look at the string above, you’ll notice that there’s a –m Mom.txt option. This means that bmail will use the content of Mom.txt as the body of your text message. That means Mom.txt has to be created (using notepad), with the following format:

user:replace_with_your_Clickatell_Username
password: replace_with_your_Clickatell_Password
api_id: replace_with_your_Clickatell_API_ID
to: replace_with _your_international_mobile_number_eg_448311234567
reply:youremail@yourdomain.com
text:Meet Mom just mailed. Check email!

1. Save your message as Mom.txt
2. Download bmail into the same folder. Bmail is a little application that let’s you send emails from the command line (DOS shell).

Once you’ve created all the scripts you need, it’s time to open your mail client and start creating some rules. Please note that this has only been tested on Microsoft Outlook 2007.

Step 2: Create the Message Rule

1. With Outlook (or your other mail client) open, click on Tools > Rules and Alerts > New Rule.
2. When you have the Rules Wizard dialog box open, look for “Start from a blank rule” and select “Check messages when they arrive”. Click on Next.
3. Now you specify the individual the email is coming from by selecting “from people or distribution list” and looking him or her up in your address book. Once you have located them, click on Next.
4. In the next screen you have to select an action that Outlook has to perform when the message arrives. Check the box next to “start application”.
5. You’ll note within the “Step 2: Edit the rule description” box that you’re able to click on the hyperlinked word, “application”.
6. Remember where you saved the batch script(s)? Now you have to go find them in the “Select an application to execute” dialog box. Note: in some cases “Executable Files” might be selected next to the “File Name” box. Change that to “All Files” and locate the applicable .bat file.
7. Click Next twice and name your rule appropriately. Click Finish.

And that’s all there is to it! If you’ve got any questions about the process above, just leave it in a comment. For more info about the SMTP API and all the handy stuff you can do with it, go to our email to SMS page.

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