Hi All

I've used Outlook 2010 on Windows 7 for a few years on my SBS2011 system to send/receive SMS texts fine through exchange 2010 to my Samsung S3 and out. I've now updated to Windows 8 and Outlook 2013 and have come across a problem.

If I type in a new SMS message in Outlook 2013 and press send I get an immediate box pop up saying 'Check names' Microsoft Outlook does not recognise '<mobile number>'. There is nothing I can do to remove the box so I can't send. I've turned off the 'check names' option in Outlook to no avail. If I reply to a new incoming text it works fine, but it wont send any new ones..... does anyone have any words of wisdom as to why it seems to be looking to marry up mobile numbers, which should be able to be entered randomly and manually?

I've tried adding numbers to a contact to no avail, as have enclosed the number in square brackets and added the international code +44..... also to no avail....

Pleaes Try to launch Outlook with the swtich command-line "Outlook.exe /safe" to check if you can reproduce this behavior.

And we may also create a new profile for testing. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829918

Cheers,
Tony Chen
Forum Support
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They removed SMS support from Outlook 2013 because of low use. Outlook won't recognize a number as a legit electronic address. Replies work because the address looks like a legit electroni

It's a shame they stopped it, and even more so they didn't clearly announce it - this will upset a few customers (along with the hard to read white screens!)... thanks for the replies!

Try this format as the receiver:

[MOBILE: xxxxx]

Note: "MOBILE" can be replaced with any other words. xxxxx is the phone number. Don't forget the square brackets and the colon. The space following the colon is not necessary.

• Proposed as answer by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 3:23 AM
• Edited by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:35 AM

Try this format as the receiver:

[MOBILE: xxxxx]

Note: "MOBILE" can be replaced with any other words. xxxxx is the phone number. Don't forget the square brackets and the colon. The space following the colon is not necessary.

• Proposed as answer by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 3:23 AM
• Edited by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:35 AM

Try this format as the receiver:

[MOBILE: xxxxx]

Note: "MOBILE" can be replaced with any other words. xxxxx is the phone number. Don't forget the square brackets and the colon. The space following the colon is not necessary.

• Proposed as answer by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 3:23 AM
• Edited by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:35 AM

Try this format as the receiver:

[MOBILE: xxxxx]

Note: "MOBILE" can be replaced with any other words. xxxxx is the phone number. Don't forget the square brackets and the colon. The space following the colon is not necessary.

• Proposed as answer by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 3:23 AM
• Edited by Chen Junyan Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:35 AM

Try this format as the receiver:

[MOBILE: xxxxx]

Note: "MOBILE" can be replaced with any other words. xxxxx is the phone number. Don't forget the square brackets and the colon. The space following the colon is not necessary.

This works!!!!

Hey Guys,

this doesn't work for me, is there a setting in Exchange that needs to be change for this to work.

thanks!

Doesn't work for me, either!!  Pooh!

But i found an answer that seems to work!  Thank you, AT&T!

Re: how to send text message to Cell phone via computer

You need to know the recipient phone's carrier.

 

If you were texting AT&T phones: 10digitphonenumber  at   att.net

There is more information if you Google "att send text from computer", but this forum won't let me post links... :)

I have information on using this method at Send SMS messages from Outlook

This may work but is not sending an SMS message. It is sending an email to the phone. 

Don

Diane, am I to understand that the SMS feature is no longer inf Office365 (Outlook 2013) also? If that is the case, MS left the Text Message button there as mine is grayed out.  

Also, I just switched from 2010 to Office365, and purchased credits from SMS Officer.  Is there some add-on service that will work with 2013.  I enjoyed sending TxtMsgs from Outlook.

That is too bad. I'm glad I found out now. I will not be upgrading to Office 2013 as I rely heavily on the text messaging service. Thx, Douglas

 Interestingly, I am an MS Partner and I never heard of that.

Moreover, texts to my phone connected with Active Sync to an MS hosted email address are received in my Outlook 2013 account, but the reply function does NOT work.

Any thoughts?

The ability to send and receive SMS is a feature of  the mail server. Some Exchange servers use an SMS gateway so they can do SMS.

Very annoying they just removed the feature.  Having a new item task to create a SMS Message is huge misleading.

I usually embrace M$ products...

I used it and it is a big pain now that it is gone. It was so handy. Now I want to go back to 2010. BRING IT BACK PLEASE!

This used to work for me and I'm pretty sure it was in Outlook 2013. I thought there was an update or something that turned it off and I just needed to turn it back on. It's a huge PIA if it's truly gone. So I went to a machine that I still had running 2010 connected to an account that I had sent and received text messages from in the past and it tries to get me to sign up for a mobile provider. Before it just worked and I was surprised the first time the text came through to my mail client. UGH. Why do they constantly get rid of popular features and ram 'features' down our throats that no one wants?

The feature was removed from outlook 2013 from the start. You need an SMS account through a 3rd party unless your employer has Exchange server set up to handle SMS. Some phones supported sending sms to the phone via Bluetooth, otherwise, you need a 3rd party service because Outlook doesn't connect to the SMS messaging system directly.  Without an SMS server, you can send text email to phones using the phone number @ domain - if you know the proper format to use.

Why do they constantly get rid of popular features

Oh, and honestly, it wasn't all that popular. Corps with it enabled in Exchange used it the most.

This is my issue, I was never asked if I used the SMS feature, which I believe it's very handy when you have to send a message to a phone number to someone's cell phone because an important client just called and you're told to send a text instead of an email....Does Microsoft really appreciate their clients or what....they make me want to switch over to that other company that I don't even like....

SMS text messaging works fine for me from outlook 2013 and outlook 2010.

Ail I needed to do was add my carriers info the first time.

It is under 'new items' next to new email.

Texting to my phone also shows up on my outlook.

You need to put a + in front of the phone number.

can you explain where you did this? I don't have a new item for carrier info

It would only be present if your Exchange server and phone supported it or you had an addin installed that added sms support.

looks like they turned it back on, I set my Samsung phone to sync text messages again and walla the abilty to send texts is back. I tried the [Mobile: xxxxxxxxxx] and also works fine I am happy.

[MOBILE: xxxxx]   Works for me. Thanks.

• Edited by R.Barrantes 10 hours 59 minutes ago

[MOBILE: xxxxx]   Works for me. Thanks.

• Edited by R.Barrantes Friday, July 24, 2015 8:32 PM

[MOBILE: xxxxx]   Works for me. Thanks.

• Edited by R.Barrantes Friday, July 24, 2015 8:32 PM

You can still send email to SMS directly from Outlook 2013 as long as you know the carriers email address
http://martinfitzpatrick.name/list-of-email-to-sms-gateways/

There is also the Exchange 2013 option in OWA to setup notifications for your phone. Simply follow the instructions listed athttps://rajisubramanian.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/exchange-server-2013-text-messaging/

You need to setup the forward rule within the same OWA section for it to work.  When checking your Rules in Outlook, you will get a warning that rules were created in another version of Outlook or Outlook Web Access and they cannot be displayed.  Any editing of the SMS forwarding rules has to be done through OWA.

• Edited by Greg-R 14 hours 46 minutes ago

You can still send email to SMS directly from Outlook 2013 as long as you know the carriers email address
http://martinfitzpatrick.name/list-of-email-to-sms-gateways/

There is also the Exchange 2013 option in OWA to setup notifications for your phone. Simply follow the instructions listed athttps://rajisubramanian.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/exchange-server-2013-text-messaging/

You need to setup the forward rule within the same OWA section for it to work.  When checking your Rules in Outlook, you will get a warning that rules were created in another version of Outlook or Outlook Web Access and they cannot be displayed.  Any editing of the SMS forwarding rules has to be done through OWA.

• Edited by Greg-R Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:41 PM

The adding the carrier's e mail and phone number worked for me!