Send SMS Text Messages Using HTML & PHP!

Joshua Schaible — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:17:45 +0000

Every once and a while I like to send my friends prank text messages to make them think someone is watching them. The problem is every time I use a free service, they some how cram an ad or spam into the message. I’m going to show you how you can send your own text messages using HTML/PHP. Demo & Download Included!

First

Create the form that you’ll put in your HTML:

<form id="sms" name="sms" method="post" action="sms/send_sms.php">
<input name="to" type="text" id="to" />
<select name="carrier" id="carrier">
           <option value="att">AT&T</option>

           <option value="verizon">Verizon</option>

           <option value="tmobile">T-Mobile</option>

           <option value="sprint">Sprint</option>

           <option value="virgin">Virgin Mobile</option>
</select>
<textarea name="message" rows="6" id="message"></textarea>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Send" />
</form>

Second

Now we need the PHP to send the text message:

$to=$_POST[‘to’];
$carrier=$_POST[‘carrier’];
$message=stripslashes($_POST[‘message’]);
$headers=‘From: QuickText ’."\r\n";
if ((empty($to)) || (empty($message))) {

header ("Location: ../sms_error.php");

}
else if ($carrier == "verizon") {

$formatted_number = $to."@vtext.com";

mail("$formatted_number", " TXT Message", "$message" , "$headers");
header ("Location: ../sms_success.php");

}
else if ($carrier == "tmobile") {

$formatted_number = $to."@tomomail.net";

mail("$formatted_number", " TXT Message", "$message" , "$headers");
header ("Location: ../sms_success.php");

}
else if ($carrier == "sprint") {

$formatted_number = $to."@messaging.sprintpcs.com";

mail("$formatted_number", " TXT Message", "$message" , "$headers");
header ("Location: ../sms_success.php");

}
else if ($carrier == "att") {

$formatted_number = $to."@txt.att.net";

mail("$formatted_number", " TXT Message", "$message" , "$headers");

header ("Location: ../sms_success.php");

}
else if ($carrier == "virgin") {

$formatted_number = $to."@vmobl.com";

mail("$formatted_number", " TXT Message", "$message" , "$headers");
header ("Location: ../sms_success.php");

}
?>

The code above creates the MINIMUM basics that you need to send a text message. So I went ahead and added some simple styling, validation, support for the iPhone browser and more. Check out the demo and download the files below!

Feel free to use this code, build upon it and share it. But if you would be so kind, leave the footer link in the files. Thank you!

*Javascript used in this code example was written by my wife Lauren Schaible.

Joshua + Schaible + Blog » HTML

Send SMS Text Messages Using HTML & PHP!

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