By following this method you can get free SMS alerts on your mobile as and when a new email lands in your Gmail inbox.
To achieve this we make use of SMS channels .
SMS channels is a pilot Google project which is currently being tested in India. Using SMS channels one can subscribe to a channel of their interest and receive all updates in their mobile phone as SMS. For example there are channels on cricket where you can receive regular score updates when there are any matches or News channels like Hindu from which you get all the latest happenings from across the world. What’s even better, the service is absolutely free to use.
Now by making use of these SMS channels one can setup alerts of their Gmail account and get a SMS alert on mobiles (as a feed) when an email lands in their inbox. Gmail also has a feed address which is similar to a blogger blog’s feed.
When you click the above link you get a popup requiring you to enter your username and password. When you enter them, for example yourname@gmail.com and your password, you can see the latest unread emails as a feed.
To integrate your username and password to the Gmail feed just change the URL as
To integrate your username and password to the Gmail feed just change the URL as https://username:password@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom (Customized Gmail feed)
(Replace username and password with your actual username and password)
Now since we don’t want our username and password to be known to others so we use services such as feedburner to mask the URL.
Setting up Feedburner:
Log into feedburner (Now Google feedburner) using any Gmail login (or the email to which you wish to setup SMS updates, just to make it even simple) and enter the above URL (Your customized Gmail feed).
https://username:password@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom
(Replace username and password with your actual username and password)
In the next step you can customize your Feedburner URL like feeds2.feedburner.com/xyz.
You can write anything in place of xyz like ‘gmailusername’ etc. Just make sure to make it a little longer (tough to guess) or better make a random string of letter like ‘asijenalsdjfn’ just in case other safety norms are broken.
Remember that you don’t have to remember it, but make a note of it somewhere as we would need that ‘only once’ in the next step.
You may also choose ‘noindex’ option present in Feedburner.
Setting up a SMS channel:
Next job is to make your Feedburner feed turn into SMS updates. Log into Google SMS channels again with your email to which you wish to receive updates just to make things simple.
If you already subscribed to any channel using this Google ID, you’ll be taken to the next step. For others, enter any nick name, your mobile number and click on ’send verification code’. You should confirm your number by entering the verification code which you get by an SMS. You can also setup maximum number of messages you wish to receive in a day.
When done, you’ll be taken to the next page where you can find a ‘create your own channel‘ in the right sidebar slightly below.
Click on that link and in the following page, write any name, description, and choose any category and location. In the source column select RSS/Atom feed and enter your customized feedburner feed created in the feedburner step.
Select allow publishing by self and who can subscribe as ‘By invitation only’.
‘By invitation only’ is the most critical part in the entire setup neglecting which can have drastic effects.
Agree to the terms and click on create channel.
There you are, you’ve successfully setup the SMS alerts for emails and you should receive your first SMS soon.
Note: You may have to wait for a while to receive your first alert as the feedburner feed has to gather all data and go live.
It may be 5 or 6 hours or even a day. From then you’ll continuously receive the SMS alerts.
NOTE: It will not work if your password contains some special characters.
