SMS to Email

Short answer: SMS to email on SIP.IO forwards every inbound text on a messaging channel to an email inbox automatically. Set forwardEmail on the channel to a CSV of addresses and each inbound message arrives as an email, sender, timestamp, body, and media links included, no dashboard or agent seat required to read it.

Why forward SMS to email

Not every team wants a messaging console open all day. A small support team, an on-call rotation, or a single-number business line often just wants inbound texts to land where they already work: email. SMS-to-email is the fastest way to get there, a config flag on a channel you’ve already created, not a separate integration.

This is one of two inbound forwarding options on a channel. Its sibling, SMS to Webhook, posts the same inbound event to a URL instead, for teams that want to pull messages into their own system rather than an inbox. Both run in parallel with the normal conversation and webhook path, so nothing about your existing setup changes when you turn one on.

How it works

SMS-to-email sits on top of the messaging channel you already manage through /v1/channels (scope channels). A channel is a number or sender bound to a provider, SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp, and it’s the same object that handles inbound routing, opt-outs, and outbound sends.

To enable forwarding, set forwardEmail to a CSV of up to 50 email addresses:

curl -X PATCH https://api.sip.io/v1/channels/ch_… \
  -H 'x-api-key: sk_…' -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{ "forwardEmail": "support@acme.com,oncall@acme.com" }'

From then on, every inbound message on that channel is mirrored as an email, sent from messaging@sip.io via the edge platform Email Sending, in both plain text and HTML. Each email carries the sender, the recipient, the timestamp (UTC), the message body, and links to any media attachments (MMS and WhatsApp media included).

What it doesn’t replace

SMS-to-email is a mirror, not a routing decision. It runs alongside, not instead of, the normal path: the message still lands in the omnichannel inbox and ACD if the channel has a default queue, still fires the message.received webhook, and still gets stored as a message on its conversation. Turning on email forwarding doesn’t change how the message is queued, assigned, or reported on. It just adds a copy in email.

It’s also best-effort by design. Forwarding never blocks the provider’s 200 acknowledgment, so a slow or failed email send can’t cause your SMS provider to retry delivery or your inbound message to be dropped. If you need a stronger delivery contract into your own systems, send the message to your own endpoint with SMS to Webhook instead, or build against the inbox API directly.

FAQ

How do I turn on SMS to email in SIP.IO?

Set forwardEmail on a messaging channel to a CSV of up to 50 email addresses, either at creation or with a PATCH to /v1/channels/{id}. Every inbound message on that channel is then mirrored to those addresses as email.

What does the forwarded email look like?

It’s sent from messaging@sip.io via the edge platform Email Sending, in both plain text and HTML, and includes the sender, recipient, timestamp in UTC, the message body, and links to any media attachments.

Is SMS-to-email delivery guaranteed?

No. Forwarding is best-effort and runs alongside the normal conversation and webhook path. It never blocks the provider’s 200 acknowledgment, so a forwarding hiccup never causes a delivery retry or a dropped inbound message from your provider’s point of view.

See the full inbound forwarding docs, explore the messaging platform, or check pricing →