SmsToMailbox

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Faqs

All versions

Pro version only

All versions

IMPORTANT: Copy protection has been removed this may lead to errors on older Android devices

We have decided to remove the copy protection of SmsToMailbox to make the application available to all Android™ phones.
Sadly on some older Android devices/versions this change leads to unreadable preferences. This means the application stops working and cannot be started anymore. If you are faced by this issue, please remove SmsToMailbox and reinstall and reconfigure it.
This only affects users who have installed SmsToMailbox prior of August 7.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Are you able to read my messages when I use your tool?

Definitely not! The communication is taking place between your mobile phone and your email server.
We do not provide any service for data exchange. We have never access to sent and received messages.

I have a question concerning SmsToMailbox or a bug report

Please contact us!

Do I have to pay a monthly fee or something to use SmsToMailbox?

No.
The Lite Version is available at no charge and you can use it to forward your incoming SMS/MMS to your email account.
If you want to reply and sent out SMS via your PC’s email application through your Android™ phone you should buy our Pro version. The Pro version adds additional features please see the version comparison.

What does the “uses internal API – see FAQs” mean?

SmsToMailbox includes some features which cannot be realized using the standard Android™ programming interface. For the more advanced features SmsToMailbox needs to use internal undocumented functions of the Android™ framework. These Android™ functions may not be available on some devices and may change in future Android™ versions or may be completely removed, therewith the SmsToMailbox features relying on these functions would not continue to work either.
SmsToMailbox displays in its configuration which of its features are actually using undocumented internal Android™ functions.
To get an overview of which SmsToMailbox features are actually using internal Android™ functions please visit the version
comparison.

SmsToMailbox seems to not work properly, loosing mails or not forwarding mails at all. Why is that?

Please ensure to exclude SmsToMailbox from any process monitoring application which is automatically killing other applications to save memory. SmsToMailbox runs as permanent service and will only function properly if it’s not getting killed every single moment.


I would like to have the mails sent from SmsToMailbox to appear in threads. How can I establish that?

You can enable the forwarding of mails as threaded mails by checking Menu > Configuration > Threaded view. Keep in mind that your email application (webmailer) needs to support and is enabled for the display of threaded mails (GMail is displaying threaded mail as default). In other email applications you may have to change the view to get the SmsToMailbox conversions displayed in threads.

Can I find the received SMS/MMS still in the messaging application?

Sure. SmsToMailbox sends only a copy of your incoming messages to your email box.
This does not affect the functionality of the messaging application in any kind.

The email from SmsToMailbox bounces back to my Android™ phone

Please ensure that you’re using a filter rule in your mail account. This filter rule should move all incoming mails from the sender name “SmsToMailbox” (only the text) to a separate sub directory that you’ve created before.
If you’re using GMail set the filter to skip the inbox and attach a new label e.g. “MySms”.

Sometimes it takes very long until I receive the SMS/MMS as email. Can I change this?

If you are for instance receiving a SMS while you are in a phone call your phone maybe not connected to the internet during the call so SmsToMailbox cannot forward the SMS to your mailbox instantly. However SmsToMailbox will cache the SMS/MMS and resend them later. The default interval for resending is 15 minutes. You can change the interval via Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Forwarding options > Retry frequency.

Will SmsToMailbox roam while I have disabled roaming on the Android™ phone?

SmsToMailbox as any other networked Android™ application is dependent on the Android™ roaming detection. If you have disabled data roaming and are now on a roamed network there should be no possibility for applications to connect. SmsToMailbox actually doesn’t detect itself that roaming is active it just recognizes that there is no connection at this time.

I have data roaming enabled on my Android™ phone but I want SmsToMailbox not to connect while I’m roamed. How can I archive this?

Per default SmsToMailbox is behaving as any other networked applications in means of roaming. That is SmsToMailbox will only connect in a roamed network if the Android™ phone let’s SmsToMailbox open a connection. If the phone’s settings disallow data roaming, SmsToMailbox should be hindered from connecting to a network by the Android™ framework.
However you can also activate a setting to not let SmsToMailbox connect while you are roamed even if data roaming is enabled with your phone! This setting relies on the roaming information SmsToMailbox gets from the Android™ framework.
You can enable this behavior be enabling the following setting: Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Disallow roaming.
Note: If you later deselect “Disallow roaming” the standard Android™ roaming option is still active. So if you have disabled roaming in the Android™ phone settings and you are currently on a roamed connection SmsToMailbox should still be blocked by the Android™ system from opening a connection.

SMTP is configured properly I can receive test mails from SmsToMailbox but there’s no SMS forwarded

Please double check that SMS forwarding is actually enabled (Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Forwarding option > Forward SMS).

SMTP is configured properly I can receive test mails from SmsToMailbox but there’s no MMS forwarded

Please
double check that MMS forwarding is actually enabled (Menu >

Configuration > Service settings > Forwarding option > Forward MMS).
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore it may not work with all devices or on future Android™ versions).

My location isn’t attached to the mail

Please ensure that you have enabled the location sending (Menu > Configuration > Service setting > Forwarding options > Attach location).
If you still do not get a location attached there is probably a problem with the location detection via cell (or WLAN) which is not related to SmsToMailbox. Please also take into account that after a restart or reconfiguration of SmsToMailbox it will take a while until SmsToMailbox will get the location from the Android system.

A fatal error has occurred and the SmsToMailbox icon stays in the notification bar and I can’t get rid of it

If you can’t fix the error by adjusting the settings you can remove the notification icon as follows:
Enable the service in the configuration, leave the configuration and than disable the service in the configuration and leave the configuration again, after that the notification icon will have vanished.

Sometimes I get notifications twice. Why is that?

Especially with call notifications (but not exclusively) the following technical restriction applies: When you get a call SmsToMailbox immediately tries to send the notification via the network as email. However as soon as you hook up your phone, the network connection may immediately be interrupted. If in this case the SMTP client of SmsToMailbox already went that far to commit the mail but didn’t actually end the SMTP chat completely SmsToMailbox recognizes this SMTP chat as incomplete. We have no 100% indicator if the mail was actually sent! So the next time SmsToMailbox tries to finalize this chat and thus resends the mail. We decided to go this strategy as users can judge more easily double mails than lost mails! If you have questions, just drop us a mail.

What are the retry options for?

With the retry options you can configure how SmsToMailbox handles
the resending of failed mails containing SMS/MMS/call notes and camera images (Pro version only) where the transmission has failed. A mail delivery could for instance fail if you’re travelling in a fast train and the connection is getting interrupted while SmsToMailbox tries to upload a mail.
You can set
the retry interval for re-sending mails. This
interval defines how long it takes until SmsToMailbox will retry to
re-send the mails.
It’s also possible to configure how many days
failed mails are kept for later retransmission before the mails are
finally discarded. This option only applies if the message has not been
already discarded due to its retry count (see below).
You can also
configure how often SmsToMailbox should retry to re-send mails. This
retry count option can be configured separately for different types
like SMS&status mails ( incl. call notes) / MMS and media (Pro version only). The
retry count handles how often a retry will be executed for a special
type of mail. This is a security precaution to hinder that for instance
failed mails containing large images are being continuously resent which
would cause large traffic volumes.

I’m continuously getting IO errors while trying to send the test-email. Why is that?

Please ensure that your mail server is using a properly signed certificate. Self signed certificates for mail servers are not supported by SmsToMailbox. You can also try disable the use of transport layer security (TLS) with your email server via Menu > Manual server setup > SMTP settings > SMTP use TLS if available. Afterwards SmsToMailbox will no longer try to establish a secure connection.
If you still cannot connect to your mail server it is also possible to use one of the many available free mailers and just forward the SMS-emails to your custom mail server.
If you own a rooted phone and are into IT, there is a solution described here on how to upload your self-signed root certificate into the Android phone (however this is not recommended by us, use solely at your own risk). Maybe there is also an app coming sometimes which let’s you post your own certificates to the phone…

Pro version only

The SMS written in from my email account are not sent out through SmsToMailbox Pro

SmsToMailbox Pro only evaluates SMS-emails which have the email address you have configured with SmsToMailbox Pro as the SMS-email’s sender and recipient addresses.
So you need to send a mail to yourself with the appropriate “sms: …” subject line which SmsToMailbox Pro identifies as pending outgoing SMS-email.
When you are just replying to a mail which you have received from SmsToMailbox like emails from incoming SMS the sender and recipient email addresses are already set correctly to the email address that you have configured with SmsToMailbox.
It is also important that this SMS-email is residing in your inbox until it is queried from SmsToMailbox Pro. The default query interval is every five minutes. So it may take up to five minutes until the SMS is actually send (this interval can be changed in the configuration). Once the SMS is sent you will get a notification email back from SmsToMailbox Pro.
For more information on sending SMS via SmsToMailbox Pro please see the documentation.

Warning: If your email provider’s default sending address differs from the email address you have configured in SmsToMailbox Pro the SMS-email is NOT evaluated by SmsToMailbox Pro as it has a different sender address. However SmsToMailbox Pro lets you enter a second address you can send SMS-emails from. But even with this second email address configured the recipient address still needs to be the address you’ve configured as email address. To activate a second address SmsToMailbox Pro accepts mails from go to Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Answering options > IMAP query options > Second FROM address and configure a second address and enable this address.

I’m using GMail but I always get the error “false user or password” but I’m sure the data is entered correctly

Please ensure that you have enabled IMAP in your GMail account via Settings > Forwarding POP/IMAP > Enable IMAP.
Please note that it can take a while until the IMAP function is actually available after you have enabled it.

I’ve just upgraded to the Pro version why do my incoming SMS/MMS/Calls come twice into my mailbox?

Probably you still have the Lite version installed. So both versions are active and forward the SMS…
Please remove the Lite version.

Sometimes SmsToMailbox seems to not forward images even though camera image forwarding is enabled

SmsToMailbox as default only tries to resend images two times. If it the resend fails twice, e.g. because during transmission the connection is disconnected which may happen if you’re for instance traveling on fast trains the image mail will be discarded. This is a security precaution to hinder infinite resending of image mails, which would cause infinite traffic on the line.
This image retry count can be set higher (or lower) with Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Forwarding options > Retry options > Retry count media mails.
It is also possible to set the timeout when a mail sending transmission is treated as failed to a higher value. You can set the timeout to a higher value with Menu > Service settings > Forwarding options > SMTP timeout. Please take into account that during the time a mail sending is progressing all other mail sending operations are queued, so setting this value too high may block other mail sending operations. But setting this value too low may cause media transmissions to fail repeatedly because they are interrupted in the middle of transmission. Recommendation leave the value to its default.

I would like to post the notifications on the events also to my calendar and not only get them as emails. How can I archive this?

You
can enable the posting of events to your phones calendar by selecting a calendar and enabling the posting in Menu > Configuration > Services settings >

Forwarding options > Calendar posting.
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore may
not work on all devices or future Android™ versions.)

I’ve just added a new calendar to my GMail. But I cannot select this calendar in SmsToMailbox. Why is that?

Before you can add a calendar to SmsToMailbox Pro this calendar has to be known by your Calendar app on the Android™ phone. So after adding a new calendar to GMail open your Calendar app on your Android™ phone, open the menu and select “My calendars” (the menu entry may be different depending on your phone’s Android™ version) check that calendar is visible. Once it is visible in the Calendar app you can assign it in SmsToMailbox.
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore may
not work on all devices or future Android™ versions.)

My outgoing SMS/MMS and notifications about outgoing calls are also forwarded by SmsToMailbox Pro as email. How can I disable this?

You can disable the forwarding of messages you sent out from your phone by deselecting Menu > Configuration > Services settings > Forwarding options > Forward outgoing events.
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore
may
not work on all devices or future Android™ versions.)

How can I enable the forwarding of camera images?

You
can enable the forwarding of camera images by checking Menu > Configuration > Services settings >

Forwarding options > Forward camera images.
Please take into account that the sending of images as email produces a certain amount of traffic from your phone depending on the amount of images you save and their size.

SmsToMailbox says it will not send to numbers unknown to the phone book

SmsToMailbox
Pro uses the technique that you send yourself mails which then are
queried by SmsToMailbox and forwarded as SMS. Normally all SPAM filters
should be able to detect mails which have you as sender and you as
recipient in one mail but are not originated from your mail server.
However it can happen that some users do not use SPAM filters or their
SPAM filter is not able to detect such faulty mails. For this case as a
security precaution SmsToMailbox doesn’t allow to send to numbers not
known to your phone book per default to hinder spammers sending SMS via
SmsToMailbox.
If you would like to enable the sending to unknown
numbers deselect the following checkbox in Menu > Configuration >
Service settings > Answering options > SMS sending options > Send to contacts
only. But the easiest way is to just add the contact to your phone book.

I’m getting the message “SMS email too large will not send!”. How can I change the allowed transmission size for one SMS-email?

You can set the allowed size of one SMS-email via Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Answering options > SMS sending options > Maximum allowed size.
Currently the maximum allow size configurable is 8960 characters which correlates to 128 unicode SMS or 64 8bit (non-unicode) SMS.

Are the SMS I’ve sent via SmsToMailbox available in the outbox of my Android™ messaging application

SmsToMailbox tries to save the SMS sent from SmsToMailbox to you outbox. If there would be a problem saving the SMS to the messaging application you would get informed by a separate email.
You can disable the saving of messages sent via SmsToMailbox to your outbox by deselecting Menu > Configuration > Services settings > Answering Options > SMS sending options > Save sent SMS.
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore may
not work on all devices or future Android™ versions.)

Why do I have to remove the message body manually when replying?

SmsToMailbox Pro is designed to work with any IMAP capable mail provider. Mail providers and mail applications behave differently in terms of marking which part of the mail is actually the reply and which part was the original message. So there’s no straight forward way to know which part of the text is the reply. There would be ways but this would imply to use an additional database on the Android™ phone which in turns take out to be a waste of space on the phone. So please just remove the original message body when replying. You obviously may also leave the original message body or quote in between, but then it is also send via the reply SMS.

You may also write “ENDOFSMS” (case insensitive) in a new line of your SMS email body to indicate that every further text in the SMS email including the tag itself should be omitted and not sent as part of the SMS.

What are the second TO and second FROM addresses for?

You can tell SmsToMailbox Pro to not only send the notification mails to your primary email address but also to a second email address. You can enable this via Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Forwarding options > Second TO address. Keep in mind that this address is only a forward address, so reply mails targeting this address will not be queried, you need to reply to your primary email address. To further enable that SmsToMailbox Pro will treat your second address as allowed sender address you also need to enable it as second FROM address below Menu > Configuration > Answering options > IMAP query options > Second FROM address.

I would like to have the conversation thread marked read when I’m answering to a certain person via SmsToMailbox Pro?

You can enable to mark a whole conversation thread with a certain contact as read once you have answered to this contact by sending a reply or new SMS via SmsToMailbox Pro. You can enable this by activating the following setting: Menu > Configuration > Service Settings > Answering options > SMS sendings options > Mark thread as read.
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore
may
not work on all devices or future Android™
versions.)

I’ve enabled to mark the conversation thread as read when replying through SmsToMailbox but the incoming notifications in the notification bar remain?

SmsToMailbox
Pro optionally allows you to mark conversation threads as read once you’ve replied to certain contact. When opening the messaging app the thread shows up as read but before the notification in the bar still showed up. This is due to the fact that certain messaging applications are not aware when the SMS/MMS are set the threads as read and though do not change their notifications. We from SmsToMailbox have no influence on changing this.
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore
may
not work on all devices or future Android™

versions.)

Outgoing calls started from the keypad are not forwarded as email. Why is that?

With the HTC™ Hero™ standard Android™ 1.5 ROM the event for outgoing calls seems to be not correctly issued when the call was started from the keypad and not from within the contact list. Thus SmsToMailbox cannot detect the outgoing call and is not forwarding it as email.
We expect this to be fixed with a followup release of the HTC™ Hero™ higher than Android™ 1.5.

Outgoing SMS sent not forwarded as email. Why is that?

Sadly there is no event in Android™ telling applications about new outgoing/sent SMS, so we needed to find another way of detecting outgoing
SMS:
As SmsToMailbox is a pure forwarding and not a synchronization application we need a way to detect new outgoing SMS independent of the old SMS which already have been forwarded. So we have no possibility of matching against any old synchronization level and detect the changes which have occurred meanwhile (e.g. new outgoing SMS).
We do this detection for new outgoing SMS by querying the outbox folder first, as soon as a new SMS text is found there and this SMS text later shows up in the sent folder we are sure to have captured a new outgoing SMS.
The standard Android messaging application and most of its third party replacements available in the Android™ Market are saving
the outgoing SMS to the outbox folder first (even if only for some
milliseconds) before finally saving them to the sent folder. With this
procedure SmsToMailbox is able to detect outgoing SMS texts.
(This feature uses undocumented functions of Android™ and therefore may
not work on all devices or on future Android™ versions.)

Can I send out the SMS I just wrote in my email account immediately and not wait until SmsToMailbox Pro is doing the next query?

Per default the IMAP query interval is set to 5 minutes (for both: while on battery or while plugged on AC). So it may take up to 5 minutes until your SMS is finally sent out.
When you finished a new SMS email in your mailbox you also have the option to directly query your IMAP mailbox via the ‘Query email-box for pending SMS mails’ button. This will look for new SMS emails in your mailbox and immediately send them out.

Can I change the interval in which SmsToMailbox is looking for new SMS-emails?

You can change the interval of the query from default 5 to a minimum of 2 minutes via Menu > Configuration > Service setting > Answering options > IMAP query options > IMAP query frequency non-AC. This setting set’s the query interval while the phone is running on battery. Please take into account that some providers may not allow a high query frequency and also that this may cause your phones battery to be empty earlier.
There is also an option Menu > Configuration > Service setting > Answering options > IMAP query options > IMAP query frequency AC which sets the query interval while the phone is plugged into AC. This can be set down to a minimum of 1 minute. Please take into account that many email providers do not allow such a high IMAP query frequency.
Also take into account that you always have the possibility to immediately query the mailbox from within SmsToMailbox Pro by pressing the button ‘Query email-box for pending SMS emails’. This will immediately check if you have pending SMS-emails.

After a successful IMAP query from SmsToMailbox the SMS-emails remain in my inbox

Even though your IMAP mails are flagged as deleted when being processed by SmsToMailbox the mails continue to stay in the inbox. To prevent this you have the option to expunge your mailbox. With that all mails that are flagged as deleted are finally removed from your mailbox. This will also remove mails you have flagged as deleted with other IMAP clients. Per default this option is not enabled, you can enable it via Configuration > Service settings > Answering options > IMAP query options > Expunge inbox.

I want to be notified if a SMS was delivered successfully to the recipient

Per default the delivery report is disabled. You can enable the delivery report via Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Answering options > SMS Sending options > Delivery Note. Most carriers offer this service free of charge, please check with your carrier about the pricing. Please note that it can take a while until you receive the delivery report e.g. if the recipient has turned off his cellular.

Please take into account that the delivery report may have flaws at the moment, so for instance it’s reporting sent SMS as delivered which only have been forwarded to another provider but didn’t hit the actual recipient (please see Android™ bug 2305 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2305#c0). We have no influence on the handling of delivery reports and have to rely on the Android™ framework itself. SmsToMailbox Pro acts in the same way like the standard Android™ Messaging app in concerns of delivery reports.

A contact has multiple phone numbers assigned but SmsToMailbox always takes the contacts mobile number

When sending a new SMS from your IMAP account by not directly specifying the contact number but a contact name instead and this contact has multiple numbers assigned SmsToMailbox automatically sends to the contact’s mobile number. If you however want to send to the contact’s land line number you can do this by directly specifying the contacts land line number.
You can however tell SmsToMailbox Pro to not automatically take the mobile number as default if multiple numbers per contact were found. You can disable preferring the mobile number via Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Answering options > SMS sending options > Prefer mobile number.

I’m getting the error “Error parsing no plain text found in IMAP message” what does this mean?

SmsToMailbox Pro can only parse plain text mails. However almost all clients that are sending HTML or RichText mails are adding an additional part with plain text which SmsToMailbox Pro can evaluate. If this should not apply to you and your special client is sending only HTML mails without a plain text part you need to send your SMS emails as plain text mails instead of HTML. Maybe your client also has an option to add plain text parts to HTML mails. Please check your client’s settings or contact us so we can assist you.

If sending longer SMS I get additional line breaks. How can I change this behaviour?

With some IMAP mail providers it can happen that additional line breaks are inserted into the SMS after around 70 characters. If you are affected by this you can tell SmsToMailbox Pro to remove line breaks before sending SMS. If you then would like to insert a line break you need to insert two line breaks at once in the mail (for two line breaks you need to insert three and so on).
You can enable this feature by via Menu > Configuration > Service settings > Answering options > SMS sending options > Remove line breaks.

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About SmsToMailbox

SmsToMailbox Lite let’s you forward all your incoming SMS as well as logs of incoming calls as emails. The emails are displayed in sequential or threaded order up to your choice. SmsToMailbox Pro additionally offers the following features over the Lite version: Lets you answer the log emails and send out reply SMS through your [...]more →