Opening SMS app from feature phone's mobile browser?

html sms mobile-website mobile-browser
Hassan Baig picture Hassan Baig · Jul 10, 2015 · Viewed 12.9k times · Source

Via HTML, is it possible to access/open the SMS app from a mobile browser?

It's okay if the SMS is routed through the user's own mobile carrier (like normally), and is billed to the said user as well. I don't want to create my own SMS gateway to provide a platform for sending such messages. I'm only interested in calling the SMS functionality from the mobile browser.

I've seen examples of: <a href="sms://+14035550185">Send an SMS</a> But I'm unsure how extensively they work. I need a robust solution that works across an expansive range of mobile browsers (esp. old-school feature phones). I don't want to have to use HTML5 or Javascript. Most old-school feature phone browsers I'm targeting aren't Javascript-enabled - so it's a bottleneck.

Answer

Alyssa picture Alyssa · Nov 16, 2016

If you want to add a pre-fabricated message to the sms, Android and iOS devices require slightly different syntax. Note the '&' vs '?' below.

iOS:

<a href="sms:1234&body=hi">Send an SMS</a>

Android:

<a href="sms:1234?body=hi">Send an SMS</a>

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