Send an SMS using Google Voice
Phone Amego can send SMS (Short Message Service) messages of up to 160 characters using
Google Voice. Sending is free, but the recipient may be charged for the message depending on
their cell phone plan. Google Voice supports limited International SMS at this time. Pressing SMS
from the Call window or SMS with Phone Amego from your Address Book will bring up the Send
SMS window.
Once the window appears, you can specify additional recipients by selecting different numbers
from your Address Book or pressing + to create and edit a new entry. To select a number from
your Address Book, click and hold the mouse over the label next to the number you want to add.
When the contextual menu appears, select SMS with Phone Amego. The Address Book Plug-in
must be enabled for this item to appear.
Since Google Voice does not support "bulk messaging" at this time, Phone Amego will send the
message to one recipient after another every few seconds. Sending messages to a group of
contacts is especially convenient when your plans change at the last minute since people who
might not have a chance to check their Email will still have their cell phones with them.
I understand Google chose not to support bulk messaging initially because free messaging might
attract abuse. Phone Amego tries to respect that choice by asking you to select each recipient
individually and sending only one message every few seconds.
Notice that if you use Google Voice (GV) to send or receive SMS messages, Google will
conveniently archive them for you. The only messages not archived are new messages you send
directly from your cell phone. When replying to a SMS message received on your GV number, GV
translates the incoming number to an alias (406) number so the reply can be routed back
through Google Voice correctly.
Receiving SMS on Your Desktop
A missing link for many users is how to get SMS text messages received on your Google Voice
number to display on your Mac desktop. I use a free webservice called
"GVMax" (www.gvmax.com) to monitor my Google Voice account and automatically forward SMS
or voice mail notifications to Google Talk (GTalk Instant Messaging service). On the Mac, I use
iChat as my GTalk client. On the iPad, I use IM+. When someone sends an SMS text message to
my GV number, within seconds it appears in iChat where I can reply directly.
The instructions for getting started with GVMax lack a clear overview of how it works, so I have
expanded on them below.
(1) login to your Google Voice account on the web and navigate to "Settings -> Voice Settings -
> Voicemail & Text". Configure "Voicemail Notifications" and "Text Forwarding" to point to your
GMail address (this step will allow GVMax to configure the rest automatically).
(2) proceed to the GVMax website and create a GVMax account using your Google Voice login
name which will often be the same as your GMail address. You can specify a unique password, or
use your GV password (the later makes the process a little simpler).
(3) Configure GMail filters to recognize messages from your Google Voice account and forward
them to your GVMax forwarding address (which was created when you signed up). After signing
up, you will find a button on your GVMax account page titled 'Create GMail Filters" to do this
automatically. Alternatively, you can create these filters yourself by following the instructions
provided so you don't need to share your GMail password with GVMax.
When an SMS arrives, Google Voice will notify your GMail account which will forward the
notification to your GVMax forwarding address. The GVMax service converts the Google Voice
Email notification to a Google Talk IM (Instant Message) so it can be picked up by any GTalk
compatible IM client such as iChat.
To learn more, see Unified Voice, Text, and Visual Voicemail.