How to send a text message from a script (bash, cron, Python) in 2026

The one-time setup

Create an endpoint in EmailToTxt and copy its unique inbound address — it looks like server-room-a1b2c@alerts.emailtotxt.com. Add the phone number(s) that should receive the texts. Anything your script emails to that address arrives as an SMS. That’s the only new piece; the rest is mail you already know how to send.

Bash (with a working mail command)

If the host has mail or sendmail configured (or a local MTA like Postfix relaying to a smarthost), it’s a one-liner:

# subject becomes the text; keep it short and specific
echo "Backup finished with errors on $(hostname)" \
  | mail -s "Backup FAILED: $(hostname)" server-room-a1b2c@alerts.emailtotxt.com

No local mailer? Send authenticated SMTP directly with curl:

curl --ssl-reqd smtps://smtp.gmail.com:465 \
  --mail-from you@gmail.com \
  --mail-rcpt server-room-a1b2c@alerts.emailtotxt.com \
  --user 'you@gmail.com:APP_PASSWORD' \
  -T <(printf 'Subject: Disk 90%% full: %s\n\nAct now.\n' "$(hostname)")

Use an app password, not your account password — see the setup guides for getting one from Gmail or Outlook.

Cron

Cron is just bash on a schedule — wrap any of the above in a script and text yourself only when something is wrong, so you’re not paged for success:

# /etc/cron.d/disk-check — text only when the root FS crosses 90%
*/15 * * * * root use=$(df --output=pcent / | tail -1 | tr -dc '0-9'); \
  [ "$use" -ge 90 ] && echo "root FS ${use}% on $(hostname)" \
  | mail -s "Disk alert: $(hostname)" server-room-a1b2c@alerts.emailtotxt.com

PowerShell (Windows)

On Windows, Send-MailMessage is built in. (It’s marked legacy by Microsoft, but it’s perfect for a quick internal alert; for new tooling, MailKit is the modern alternative.)

$cred = Get-Credential   # or build a PSCredential from a stored app password
Send-MailMessage `
  -From "you@outlook.com" `
  -To "server-room-a1b2c@alerts.emailtotxt.com" `
  -Subject "Service stopped: $($env:COMPUTERNAME)" `
  -Body "The print spooler service is not running." `
  -SmtpServer "smtp-mail.outlook.com" -Port 587 -UseSsl -Credential $cred

Python (standard library only)

Python’s built-in smtplib needs no pip install and runs anywhere Python does:

import smtplib, socket
from email.message import EmailMessage

msg = EmailMessage()
msg["Subject"] = f"Job failed on {socket.gethostname()}"
msg["From"] = "you@gmail.com"
msg["To"] = "server-room-a1b2c@alerts.emailtotxt.com"
msg.set_content("Nightly ETL exited non-zero. Check the logs.")

with smtplib.SMTP_SSL("smtp.gmail.com", 465) as s:
    s.login("you@gmail.com", "APP_PASSWORD")
    s.send_message(msg)

Drop that in a try/except around whatever you’re monitoring and you have SMS alerting in a dozen lines, with no third-party dependency.

Why email beats an SMS API here

You could call a messaging API instead — and if you’re building a product around texting, you probably should. But for “text me when this script breaks,” email wins on effort: every OS, language, and scheduler can already send it; there are no API keys or secrets to rotate in yet another place; and you don’t have to register A2P 10DLC or handle opt-outs yourself. EmailToTxt handles the compliant SMS delivery, STOP/HELP, and rate limiting on the other side, so your script stays a script.