How to Send Photos via Text Message
Don’t let a text messaging service ruin your photos or charge you more to send a low quality image.
IN THIS GUIDE, YOU’RE GOING TO READ THE OPTIONS TO SHARE PHOTOS VIA TEXT MESSAGE:
The world of communication changed in the winter of 1992. As the end of year holidays approached, a 22 year old software programmer in the UK sent the world’s first text message to his colleague Richard Jarvis. It read simply, ‘Merry Christmas’.
Today, cell phone users around the world send between 23 billion and 27 billion text messages every day. Texting has become a much-relied-on form of communication, a means to quickly ask a question, respond to a request, or just let someone know we’ll be five minutes late for dinner. But text messaging has also advanced and today it is possible to send files via text message, too.
In this article we’ll explain how easy it is to send a photo via text message no matter whether you are using an Android or iOS mobile device. We’ll also explain the drawbacks to sending photos this way, and the best way to avoid these drawbacks so that you can share any photo, of any size, in any number for free.
SMS and MMS: Old Technologies for Modern Messaging
Leaving aside messaging services like Apple’s Messages, Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram, when someone talks about sending a text message or a photo by text, they are likely referring to SMS and MMS technologies. Both are supported worldwide but both are also aging approaches to sending text and data.
SMS, or Short Message Service, was initially developed as part of the GSM standards for international cellular communications. Rolled out broadly more than 30 years ago, it allowed for sending text messages of 160 characters or less between operators and phone users and, in time, between users themselves. It was impossible to send non-text elements by SMS, so photos, videos, and other media were impossible to share.
MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service, was introduced commercially in 2002 as an upgrade to SMS. With MMS, users finally had the capacity to send photos, videos, and other multimedia elements using their cellular network plan. It did not – and still does not – rely on an internet connection for communication, instead using existing 3G, 4G and 5G connections.
Decades old now, text technologies are still used to transfer photos – and here’s how.
How to Send a Photo via Text
Sending an image by text message – really, by MMS – is simple. While the exact steps will vary depending on whether you are using an Android or iOS phone and, if the former, the text messaging application itself, it remains fairly easy:
Open your text messaging application
Select your recipient or enter their cell phone number
Tap the + or attachment symbol next to the messaging bubble
Select your photo or image, attach it to the message, and tap the send icon
An Android device will almost always send the image as an MMS or RCS message, while Apple’s Messages app will default to MMS only if the telephone receiving the message is not an iOS device. In other words, your phone will determine the best way to send the photo attached to your message, and the reason it might use something other than MMS is because there are a couple of significant drawbacks to that technology.
Three Problems with Sending Photos via Text Message
There are three primary problems that come with trying to send photos via text message.
1. Size constraints
Just as SMS messages are limited to 160 characters of text input, photos that are sent with MMS face file size constraints. The largest image that can be sent by MMS is 3MB, with some operators limiting the size of their MMS messages even more. For example, AT&T and T-Mobile in the US limit images to 2MB, and their fellow American cell network Verizon limits MMS transfers to just 1.65MB.
2. Multiple photos
Following on from the size constraints, MMS places hard constraints on sending multiple images in the same message. Trying to send multiple photos by MMS means sending more than one message. Your messaging application might do that automatically for you, but that means multiple messages for your recipient and – if you are roaming – additional charges to be paid when you return home.
3. Interoperability
If you attempt to text a photo from an iOS device to another iOS device, it will send it via Messages in full resolution. If you try and send the same photo from an iOS device to an Android device, the MMS protocol will automatically diminish the quality of the image so that what is received is substantially lower in quality than what you sent. Similarly, and frustratingly, this is the same for group texts involving both iOS and Android devices.
With these issues in mind, the challenges inherent in sending a photo by text message are clear. Luckily, there is a way to send a photo by text message that doesn’t rely on MMS technology and that will overcome all these constraints.
How to Send a Photo via Text Message with Smash
Smash is a file transfer service that is tailor made to sed large files. Typically, these large files are ones that are too big to transfer via email or instant message, meaning they are usually files bigger than 20MB. However, with MMS limited to only a couple of megabytes, people turn to Smash to send files by text that are just too big to easily message. Here’s how:
Go to the Smash website
Tap on the icon in the middle of the screen, select your photo, and upload
Add your email address, add password protection if you like, and then copy the unique URL
Paste the URL into text messaging application and tap to send
Unlike technologically outdated SMS and MMS, there are no file size limits for photos or images shared via Smash. The Smash URL that you drop into your text message can link to a single photo or a full folder or photos of any size. Forget 3MB – with Smash you can send gigabytes of photos with the same sharing URL.
As for interoperability, Smash is entirely platform agnostic. You can send from an iOS or Android device to any other device and it will work just the same. There’s never any diminishing of quality, the resolution of your photo stays just the same, and it’s never resized to fit the smaller screen of a phone.
In short, sending a Smash URL is the easiest way to send a photo by text message without ever having to worry about the size of your photo, how many photos you want to send, or any nefarious resizing or resolution shenanigans.
Conclusion: The Best Way to Send Photos via Text Message
Text messaging is great for sending a short, sharp message, and attaching a photo to send as an MMS is easy. However, it comes with some big drawbacks in terms of the size of the photo that you can send, the number of photos you can send in the same message (spoiler: just one), and interoperability between iOS and Android devices.
With Smash, however, you can send a single URL that links to one, two, three, or however many photos you wish. No matter how large the photos might be, you can transfer them with Smash securely. Unlike MMS which changes both the size and resolution of a photo, Smash sends the photo or photos just as you took them.
Sending photos with Smash is free no matter how many photos you send, how often you send them, or how large the photos might be. Sending is simple using the web portal or you can send directly from one of the dedicated applications for iOS and Android available on the App Store or Google Play.
Need to send photos via Text Message?
Use Smash, it’s no file size limits, simple, fast, secure and free.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
SMS is a text-only messaging service and MMS allows you to send multimedia files, too. There are hard limits on both, though, whether it is the 160 characters for SMS, or the file size limits for MMS. Typically, the same messaging application on a portable device will be capable of sending both SMS and MMS, as long as the services are supported in the country where you are sending or receiving the message.
-
This is a function of the MMS technology. Instead of sending the photo as it appears on your iOS device, your photo is first compressed and then transferred to your Android recipient. This degrades the quality and resolution of the photo, often leaving both sides of the transfer disappointed. Avoiding this disappointment is easy, though: just use Smash!
-
No! Smash will send any file no matter which format it might be in. Unlike MMS, Smash sends the file as it is uploaded by you. If it’s a JPG or PNG file, no problem. If it’s a HEIC file? Still no problem. You can send a GIF or any other image file with Smash and the outcome is the same: whatever you upload is delivered in the same state, in the same format, and in the same resolution. It’s yet another reason why you should Smash your photos instead of texting them!
