Let’s review: Sending free SMS text messages in Yahoo! Messenger
July 8, 2009 on 2:04 pm | In Uncategorized | 47 Comments
This is one of those features that I tell people is in Yahoo! Messenger and they inevitably say, “Really?”. Yes, really! Rather than using your mobile phone to send SMS text messages, you can send them for free from Yahoo! Messenger.
When you send an SMS message from Yahoo! Messenger, replies from your friends come back to you in Messenger, making it a quick and convenient way to chat with your friends when they’re not online. This feature is available in all of our versions – 9.0 for Windows, Messenger for Mac, Yahoo! Messenger for the Web, iPhone and even in the chat features in Yahoo! Mail.
If you’re using Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, it’s as easy as right-clicking on a contact and choosing “Send SMS message…”. If you don’t have a mobile number stored for that contact, you’ll be asked to enter it. You can also send SMS messages to people who aren’t in your contact list or address book. Go to the Actions menu and select “Send an SMS message…” (or hit Ctrl + T on your keyboard). A menu pops up asking you to select the contact you want to SMS. At that point click the “Other contact” tab and type in the mobile number.
In Yahoo! Messenger for the Mac, select a contact in your list, then go to the “Contacts” menu and select “Send SMS…”. You can also right click on a contact to get started. You’ll also notice a “Voice and SMS” button in the IM window. You can click on that to send an SMS. Or to send to a mobile number that’s not in your contact list, go to the File menu and select “New SMS…” (or hit Shift + Command + N on your keyboard).
In Yahoo! Messenger for the Web, you’ll notice an additional group in your contact list named “Mobile Contacts”. This will list all the friends in your address book that have a mobile number. Just click one to get started. If you want to send to mobile number that’s not in your list, just type it into the “Find Contacts” bar near the top and hit Enter on yout keyboard. This will start a new IM window where you can type in and send your SMS message.
When you’re on your iPhone, launch the Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone app and start a conversation with a friend. Then tap the “IM” icon to the left of the text box to change it to “SMS”. Type your message and send. You can also tap the “New Message” icon in the app and in the To: field, type in a mobile phone number to get started. Watch the SMS portion of the iPhone demo video
And finally, you can also send SMS messages from Yahoo! Mail. When you’re signed into the new Yahoo! Mail, click a friend in your “Contacts” list on the left side. This will open a new chat window. In the upper right of that window you’ll notice a series of three icons – one for Mail, one for chat and one for mobile. Click on the mobile icon to convert your chat to an SMS text message instead.
In Yahoo! Mail Classic, you’ll notice a second group in the chat module on the left hand side named “Mobile Contacts”. Open that group to select a contact. Or, click the “New text” link at the bottom of the module to send an SMS message to a mobile number that’s not in your list.
It’s free to send SMS messages from Yahoo! Messenger but note that the friends who receive your messages may be subject to fees depending on their carrier and data plan. SMS message sending is supported by Yahoo! Messenger in the following countries and carriers:
United States: AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile
Canada: Rogers, Fido
India: Vodaphone Essar, Airtel, Spice, Escotel, Reliance
Indonesia: XL, Indosat, Hutch 3, Telkomsel
Malaysia: Celcom, DiGi
Philippines: Globe, Smart
Thailand: AIS, DTAC
Vietnam: Mobifone, Viettel, Vinaphone, S-Fone, HT, EVN
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
What id I’m from Canada, and I want to send a SMS to my friend in Viet Nam. We both have cell phones with the supported carriers in the list. Is there any additional dial preffixes we need to add before the local number?
Comment by Viet — July 8, 2009 #
Sarah,
Id like to point out some things you might want to point out to your dev team. One, You need the ability to change your name on sms. I use the screen name svr350z and when i send a text alot of people disregaurd it because it shows up that way instead of my name. Of course, Once i explain to them its from me they accept but it would be nice to have that option.
Secondly, You might want to ask the dev team to add the sms as a separte / side part of messengar. The fact is, Alot of people dont know they can use sms because its almost hidden.
i LOVE this app and it works great but those things to me would be a big bonus.
Comment by SyNisT3R — July 8, 2009 #
This is awesome I knew about it but forgot about it.
Comment by Unveiled Entertainment — July 8, 2009 #
This is going to be cool…particularly if messages from my phone will be counted as SMS’s instead of data. I get free text, but data costs.
One oddity I’ve noticed with the new build is that the “Last message recieved on” and the “suchandsuch is typing” thing is no longer in the bottom margin of the messenger window, but in the window itself…It’s ANNOYING there. I want the option to put it back on the bottom of the window, where it belongs!
Comment by meowwl — July 9, 2009 #
@Viet,
Yes– You do need to add the country code for International numbers.
Country codes:
USA +1
Canada +1
India +91
Singapore +65
Thailand +66
Malaysia +60
Philippines +63
Vietnam +84
For a full list of country codes please go here: http://wikitravel.org/en/List_of_country_calling_codes
-Melissa
Comment by Melissa Daniels — July 9, 2009 #
Sarah i really like the new Y! Messenger 10 (10.0.0.331-us) but you really should make a new interface for it like y mess for vista and i dont understand why video call and voice call is deactivated? And more languages like Hungarian ,Romanian and Russian.
Comment by John — July 9, 2009 #
This is going to be cool…particularly if messages from my phone will be counted as SMS’s instead of data. I get free text, but data costs.
Comment by tasneemsultana67 — July 11, 2009 #
Would a Mexican carrier be added anytime soon?
Comment by alex_mayorga — July 14, 2009 #
@alex_mayorga,
At this time I don’t know of any plans to add a Mexican carrier.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 14, 2009 #
Hello, so I am living in Germany and am texting friends in the states. Would there be any extra charges for them besides the normal text rate?? We text back and forth a lot and I don’t want to rack up their bills.
Comment by Alex — July 16, 2009 #
@Alex – No, there would not be any extra charges for your friends when you SMS/text them from Messenger. They would be subject to the same charges they normally are when receiving SMS messages.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 16, 2009 #
in sending sms we can surely send our message
that we want to say………
But you know what hindi pa ako nag try mag send gamit ang yahoo messenger.Kaya ngayon susubukan kong mag send ng message para maptunayan ko na talagang use ful ito.
Comment by mary ann — July 17, 2009 #
hello i am rahul and i send free sms for mobile
Comment by rahul sahu — July 21, 2009 #
I am going to be traveling in the USA from Canada. Rogers is my carrier. When I receive an SMS what will I be charged? What will it cost to send an SMS back to Canada? I currently have a plan that offers unlimited received, and 2500 sent, and I also have a data plan on my Blackberry. Rates are much higher when using the cell phone from the USA, so I am looking for a cheaper alternative than 75 cents to send and 15 cents to recieve.
Comment by Mark — July 21, 2009 #
@Mark – you need to check with Rogers on that. SMS charges can vary greatly when you get outside of your home country. There is no additional surcharge from Yahoo! to deliver to you so whatever they charge you for delivery to your phone while you’re in the US is what it will cost.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 21, 2009 #
not working in kosovo
Comment by Aldo — July 21, 2009 #
I am from Malaysia and I am using digi, I tried yahoo sms test messages on my cell phone. I was not being charged for the message i sent in my cell phone. However, will I be charged in my internet?
Comment by Zhen Liang — July 21, 2009 #
I tried sending myself a text with the messenger to see if I would be charged, and i wasn’t. However, I received the message while my sim memory was full, so the number from which i received the text asking me to reply “y” in order to receive texts was lost.
Is there any way i can receive that message again? Is my phone now impossible to text to from yahoo?
Thanks!
Comment by Kevin — July 23, 2009 #
@Kevin – I would try going to http://mobile.yahoo.com/ and going through the setup process again. You should be able to get it to fire off another verification SMS.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 23, 2009 #
i’m here in germany and lately i found out that germany is already included in the country lists and lots more countries for messager on mobile phone. i tried to sign in but i didnt receive any SMS from yahoo. is this avaiable to different countries already?
Comment by jayem — July 26, 2009 #
@jayem – SMS messaging is not currently available in Germany. Per the original article, SMS messages can be sent from Yahoo! Messenger to users in the following countries and on these carriers:
United States: AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile
Canada: Rogers, Fido
India: Vodaphone Essar, Airtel, Spice, Escotel, Reliance
Indonesia: XL, Indosat, Hutch 3, Telkomsel
Malaysia: Celcom, DiGi
Philippines: Globe, Smart
Thailand: AIS, DTAC
Vietnam: Mobifone, Viettel, Vinaphone, S-Fone, HT, EVN
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 27, 2009 #
I sent a text message to a friends phone from Yahoo Mail (two friends actually). They responded to the text, but I have not received it or notification of any kind. Is there something else I need to do?
Comment by M.L. — July 30, 2009 #
@M.L. – No, you shouldn’t need to do anything else. Just to be clear, you need to stay in Yahoo! Mail to receive the reply messages from your friends. You can’t jump back to the client from Mail and expect receive them there. Hope that clarifies.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 31, 2009 #
im in the middle east and i want to contact the states do they charge the reciever?
Comment by renee — July 31, 2009 #
@Renee – Yes, your friend that receives your text message will be charged their normal fees for doing so. Your friend may want to check if there are any additional fees for receiving a text from the Middle East and replying to it. Hope that helps,
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — July 31, 2009 #
Thank you Sarah. I guessed that might be the case.
Comment by M.L. — July 31, 2009 #
is there away that you can recover old text messages that people sent u? I need to find something the electric went out and now can’t find message that the person wrote
Comment by bobbi — August 5, 2009 #
Can I add my name to the text I send? When my friends receive a text from me it show as a from number that they don’t reconize.
Comment by Dan — August 27, 2009 #
can i send an sms from my cell phone using hte ‘yahoo login’ to another user who has his cell linked to his yahoo messanger but is also using his cell?
so txting cell to cell, thru yahoo?
Comment by angela — August 29, 2009 #
Will Sprint ever be supported? I just switched to Sprint and now I realize I can’t receive SMS from Yahoo messenger like I used to.
Comment by Dan — September 3, 2009 #
doesn’t seem to work. i tried to send sms to a digi number in malaysia and i got errror message “Phone number +6016xxxxxxx is not currently served by our SMS messaging partners.”
Comment by kit — September 4, 2009 #
I know that it is free to send but what about the receive part if i send a sms to a friend in vietnam?
Comment by Dawn — September 7, 2009 #
@Dawn – the friend who receives your SMS message from Messenger is subject to any fees or charges that their carrier imposes for SMS text messaging.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — September 8, 2009 #
So when my friend presses reply, it would reply directly to my messenger at no extra cost to me?
Comment by Jen — September 16, 2009 #
@Jen – Yes, that is correct.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — September 16, 2009 #
I have used this feature previously but no when I log in to chat and attempt to send a sms message, it is not recognizing any of my previously successfully used cell numbers…..?
Comment by Martha — September 17, 2009 #
Just to confirm how this works for cost…
If a friend of mine sends me a text from within yahoo mail to my cell phone (I’m in canada on Fido service), then when I reply to it, how much am I charged?
Am I charged as a local text message when relpying or an international text message? I don’t see anyone else asking this question, which is odd, because I would have thought this is vital to know to determine whether its useful to use this feature or not. The number showing in the message I receive on my cell phone begins with +92xxxxxx. Its not a normal phone number, so something Yahoo specific I would guess. Is it an American number Yahoo uses to send from?
thanks
Comment by Alan — September 17, 2009 #
@Alan – When you reply to a SMS message sent from Yahoo! Messenger, your carrier charges for it as if it’s a local SMS message. The only exception to this is if you happen to be roaming at that time and are off your network.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — September 17, 2009 #
Will it charge my friend any fee’s if she replys to my sms?she has At&t and she has unlimited texting..
Comment by jose — September 28, 2009 #
@Jose – When your friend replies to your Messenger SMS messages, she will be subject to any charges or fees associated with her plan. If her plan includes unlimited texting then her replies to you will fall under these same terms.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — September 29, 2009 #
i am with Fido and I cannot receive messages from Yahoo but my daughter who also is with Fido can.. I have contacted them with no help at all.. any ideas as to why two people on the same plan one can and one can’t?
Comment by chan — October 10, 2009 #
Hey all…got a question if anyone can answer it?? I sent a few text messages to a cell phone through Yahoo! and then when I was finished, the only thing I could do then was hit the “X” button in the right hand corner. I want to keep the messages I sent to her or at least find the messages I sent to her, but I don’t know where or how???? Somebody please help?! =)
Comment by Tiffany — October 11, 2009 #
@Tiffany – Like regular IMs, SMS messages you send are stored in your archive. When you’re in Yahoo! Messenger go to the “Contacts” menu and choose “Message Archive”.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — October 12, 2009 #
I live in the US and i have a friend in Taiwan i’m trying to text.
when i try to do it through yahoo, it says that the number format is invalid. i use the 886 country code, and then 9 for the cell phone and then the phone number.
I typed it in exactly as how it appears on my phone when she sends me a standard phone to phone SMS. but that costs an arm and a leg. How do i properly add the number?
Comment by Denn — October 20, 2009 #
I have yahoo messenger installed on my iphone and
learned that I can only send sms messages to rogers and fido networks, in canada. I was wondering, with the news that bell and telus will be adding a GSM network in Canada and offering the iphone, will yahoo messenger expand their services to offer sms messaging to bell and telus phones as well?…..that would be awesome!!!
Comment by Vlad — October 21, 2009 #
@Vlad – Thanks for the suggestion. I don’t know of any firm plans to add them at this time but I will pass along the request!
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — October 21, 2009 #
@Denn – I think you’re encountering problems because we don’t support sending SMS messages to Taiwan from Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo! Messenger supports SMS messaging for the following countries and carriers:
•United States: AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile
•Canada: Rogers, Fido
•India: Vodaphone Essar, Airtel, Spice, Escotel, Reliance
•Indonesia: XL, Indosat, Hutch 3, Telkomsel
•Malaysia: Celcom, DiGi
•Philippines: Globe, Smart
•Thailand: AIS, DTAC
•Vietnam: Mobifone, Viettel, Vinaphone, S-Fone, HT, EVN
Comment by Administrator — October 21, 2009 #