Send a letter by text message too

An email address can stop working long before a letter arrives. A mobile number usually lasts longer. So you can have the link of an email letter sent to a recipient's phone as well, on the day it arrives. The email still goes out as usual: the text comes on top.

The text has fixed words, the name of the writer and the letter's link. You never write the text yourself, and it never contains your letter.

Before you start

• Text messages go with paid letters. A letter whose link is also texted is a paid letter and costs one credit, however many of its recipients get a text. See Free letters, paid letters and credits.
• One account can send up to 100 texts a calendar month.
• Your own mobile number must be confirmed once. You can do it under Mobile number in Profile under Your account, or right in the composer the first time you choose a text.

Add a text to a letter

1. 01

   Write the letter

   Add the recipients and write the letter as usual. See Write and schedule an email letter.

2. 02

   Choose who also gets a text

   Under the recipients, Also send by text message shows a switch for each address and how many texts you have left this month. Turn on the switch of a recipient. On a free letter the composer then says that this makes it a paid letter. When the address is one of your contacts with a phone number, the number is filled in for you.

3. 03

   Type the number

   Otherwise type their mobile number. The country is chosen for you and can be changed with the flag. A landline cannot get texts, and a number that does not look right is shown before you send.

4. 04

   Confirm your own number, the first time

   If your number is not confirmed yet, the switch asks for it. Type your mobile number and press Text me a code. Most phones fill in the code by themselves, and the switch turns on.

5. 05

   Check and send

   Before you send, How it arrives lists each recipient with Email and text or Email, and Text messages says how many texts the letter uses.

What the recipient gets

On the day the letter arrives, the recipient gets the email with the link and the access code, and a text with the same link. To open the letter they still need the access code. If they cannot find the email, the letter page offers to text the code to the phone that got the letter. Their phone may fill it in by itself. The code can be texted 3 times a day at most. Each code texted counts toward the writer's texts for the month, like the text with the link.

So a number that has changed hands over the years only gets a link, and cannot open the letter: opening it also needs the recipient's email address.

Change or remove a text

While the letter is scheduled, open it to change it. You can turn texts on or off and change numbers. A text that has already gone out cannot be changed. See Change, reschedule or delete a letter.

Limits

One account can send up to 100 texts a calendar month, over all its letters. Texts are counted per calendar month and unused texts do not carry over. One account can send at most 30 texts within 24 hours. When a month is used up, a letter that arrives in a later month can still get a text.

Privacy and misuse

• Phone numbers are stored encrypted and never shown to the people you write to.
• Every text is recorded for 2 years: who sent it, to which number and about which letter. This lets us trace and stop misuse.
• A recipient who replies STOP gets no more texts from us. A recipient who does not know the sender can press I don't know this sender on the letter page, and our team looks at the account.
• Only text people who expect a letter from you. Accounts that use texts for anything else lose them.

The privacy policy and the terms say more.

Questions

• Add recipients and manage your contactsSend one email letter to several people, and keep the addresses you write to in your contacts, so they are a few keystrokes away in the composer.
• What your recipient sees and how they open the letterThe notice email, the unlock page, reading the letter and getting its files, step by step. You can pass this page on to a recipient who is stuck.
• In the appMobile numberConfirm your number in your profile.