Free Text Messaging from Your Computer

It's Saturday morning, the first full day of spring, and there's an inch of snow on the ground. That's just wrong! I will teach a class at the library this afternoon, and I expect to get at least one or two text messages from students. "I'll be late to class." "Sorry, teacher, I can't come to class today."

Have you noticed that everybody under the age of 50 texts these days? It seems like nobody makes actual telephone calls any more. My oldest grandson doesn't like phone calls at all... he would much rather text back and forth, even with his grandmother. Now, because of my volunteer teaching and tutoring, I regularly have to send and receive a lot of text (SMS) messages. And I have come to just hate typing on the teensy little keyboard on my Blackberry. I know I'm not alone in this!

So even though my Virgin Mobile cellphone plan provides unlimited free texting, I use my computer to send texts whenever I can because it’s just so much less frustrating. And I've started using Google Voice for that because it lets me both send and receive text (SMS) messages... for free. And the best of all is that you can set it so that it sends a copy of every received text message to your e-mail. Before, I sometimes used Skype for texting, but they charge me for every text sent, and I cannot receive texts on Skype.

This Google Voice text message service is yet another useful, free service that a lot of folks don't know about. I've been successfully using various parts of Voice for a few years now. I have been sending all my text messages through Voice recently, and am so happy with it that I think it's time to share.

Now, if I still had an Android phone I could just send and receive texts from either my phone or my computer. But I'm still using my old Blackberry (I dropped and broke my shiny new Android phone a while back and returned to using the Blackberry) and there is no Voice app for it. I can't send texts from Google Voice from my phone. But no problem! When I leave the house and a time-sensitive text message comes in (Teacher, I can't come to our tutoring session that starts in 5 minutes. sorry!), the text will appear in G-mail on my Blackberry, clearly marked as a text message. I can check e-mail as quickly on my Blackberry as I can text messages, and that's true of any even semi-smart phone. If I need to reply, I can wait till I get home or send a reply text from my Blackberry phone number.

When I am at home, and a text comes in to my Google Number, I get both a Google popup on my computer screen and an e-mail with the text message. I’ll also see it if I check e-mail from my tablet. Unlike a lot of young people, I don’t carry my cell phone around the house with me all day and I may not remember to look at my phone for hours, but I’m usually on the computer and tablet more often. So I'm less likely to miss a text that comes to my Voice number.

Another thing I like is that my Google Voice inbox, accessed from my computer, keeps a searchable record of every text I send and receive. I can go back several years if I want, unlike my phone where text messages just kind of roll off and disappear after a week or two. In addition, I keep all my contacts in G-mail, and the list both syncs with my Blackberry and is available on any other device on which I can sign in to Google. That makes it very easy to find cell phone numbers of the individuals I need to text, no matter where I am.

Now, every aspect of this Google Voice setup is completely free. To send text messages to cell phone numbers, you’ll need to first get a Google account and then a Google Voice number. You can usually get a number with your own area code. You can read all about how to get your very own Google VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) phone number by going to the Google Voice website. They make it pretty easy, but Voice has a lot of features, most of which you don't need to send or receive texts. I've tried most of what they offer... some things worked better than others for me, but so far the texting has been flawless.

I should mention that Google will encourage you to link your Google Voice account with Google Hangouts, which is a (free) video call/conferencing service, similar to Skype. I'm a big fan of Hangouts, too - I use it for video tutoring and like it quite a bit better than Skype these days. But I don't want to be texting or receiving texts from the Hangouts app. Google Voice and it's own, separate extension seems to be a lot easier to use when I'm sending texts to people who are not signed up for Google, let alone Hangouts. So don't connect Voice and Hangouts, would be my advice. (You will still be able to send text messages, from within Hangouts, to the person you're talking to on a video call.)

This all sounds a little fiddly, doesn’t it? But actually it’s pretty easy. I will admit to being a bit of a Google fangirl, but this really is a very useful product, and free is frugal, too. Five stars to Google for its Voice service!