LineHelp

Send texts by email with an Email to SMS gateway

Owner, Admin

An Email to SMS gateway turns an email into a text. Any system that sends email can use it, for example Outlook, a CRM, a booking system or a monitoring tool. The text leaves from your own Line number.

Before you start

  • You need the Owner or Admin role to create and change a gateway. Members can see it.
  • You need a Line number that can send SMS.
  • Each text uses credits from your credit wallet, at the normal SMS rate.

Create a gateway

  1. In the main menu, select Channels.
  2. Select Email to SMS.
  3. Select Create a gateway.
  4. Enter a Name, for example the name of the system that will send.
  5. Select Create.

The gateway card shows the gateway address. You are added as the first allowed sender.

Send a text

  1. Copy the gateway address from the card.
  2. Put the mobile number after the +, with 44 in place of the first 0. For example: name+447700900123@inbound.useline.io.
  3. Send an email to that address from an allowed sender.

The email body becomes the text. Line removes quoted history. One email can text up to ten numbers. Put each gateway address in To or Cc.

Put the number in the subject

Some systems cannot change the address. Use the subject instead.

  1. On the gateway card, in Number in, select The subject.
  2. Send the email to the gateway address with no number in it.
  3. Make the subject the mobile number and nothing else, for example +447700900123. Separate more numbers with commas.

Choose who can send

Line refuses mail from anyone who is not an allowed sender. An empty list blocks all mail.

  1. On the gateway card, find Allowed senders.
  2. Enter an address, such as crm@yourcompany.co.uk, or a whole domain, such as @yourcompany.co.uk.
  3. Select Add.

Choose the sending number

In Send from, select the number that every text comes from. Number in the workflow lets the gateway workflow choose.

Each gateway has a workflow named Email to SMS. Select Edit workflow to change it, for example to add a time rule or to text a fixed number.

Use your own domain

You can use a subdomain that you own, such as sms.yourcompany.co.uk. Senders then write to 447700900123@sms.yourcompany.co.uk.

  1. In Your domain, enter the subdomain.
  2. Select Add domain.
  3. Add the DNS records that the card shows to your domain.
  4. Select Check DNS until the domain is verified.

The Line address keeps working while you wait.

Replies

A reply from the recipient goes to the Inbox, in the SMS conversation with that person.

You can also reply to a text by email. When a workflow forwards a text with a Send an Email step, reply to that email in your mail program. Line texts your reply to the customer from the number that they texted. Only a verified email destination or the sign-in email of a member can reply this way.

Check what was sent

Recent texts on the gateway card lists the last ten sends and refusals, with the reason for each refusal.

Limits: 200 workflow texts an hour for the workspace, and 20 an hour for each recipient.

Common problems

No text arrived and the log shows "Sender not allowed". Add the sender address or its domain to Allowed senders.

The email arrived in the Inbox but no text went. The address had no number, the subject was not only a number, the body was empty, or the wallet had too few credits. Check Recent texts for the reason.

My email reply did not send. You replied from an address that is not a verified email destination or a member sign-in. The SMS conversation shows the note Email reply not sent.