INTRODUCTION
So why does Yahoo, MSN, and countless other free web based email providers allow SMS alerts to be sent to your mobile phone upon receipt of a new message in your Inbox and gMail does not?  Inquiring minds really want to know. 

At the time of this post, there is no specific setting to enable SMS Alerts from the gMail Inbox. 

However, there is a way to have gMail notify you via SMS and it’s oh-so-easy:   

The following steps may be applied, in variation, to other web based email accounts.

This document describes how to configure gMail to send SMS alerts upon receipt of any new email messages to the Inbox, however, by employing email Filters, it is possible to configure gMail to only send SMS alerts upon receipt of emails that meet specific criteria.

The key to enabling gMail SMS alerts is to have gMail forward a copy of emails to your wireless device.  As a general rule, only the first 160 characters of an email message will be displayed on your wireless device but this will provide an effective notification system.  

WHAT YOU WILL NEED
In order to receive a text message from any source other than another wireless device, you need to know two pieces of information; (1) your wireless telephone number and (2) the email server domain name used by your wireless provider.  

The domain server names for the three major wireless providers in the USA are:

AT&T = txt.att.net
T-Mobile = tmomail.net
Verizon Wireless = vtext.com

Therefore, if your wireless telephone number is (213)555-1212 and you are an AT&T Wireless customer, your wireless device email address is:  2135551212@txt.att.net.

For a comprehensive list of many of the world’s wireless provider customer email domain server addresses, Click Here.

SETUP
1.
Using your favorite web browser, login to your gMail account.

2.
Click Settings.

3.
Click “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”.  A new page will appear. 

4.
Click the “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” checkbox. 

5.
Next, in the edit field labeled with the text “email address” text, delete this text and type in your wireless device email address, for example, 2135551212@vtext.com.

6.
Select “Keep gMail’s copy in the Inbox” from the selection box.  (Recommended)

7.
Click The [Save Changes] button located near the bottom of the page.  You will be returned to your gMail Inbox where you should see the message, Your preferences have been saved.”

That’s all there is to it.

Enjoy,

Mark