Fastmail SMS

[roylefamily]

Is the fastmail sms service still in use.

[rjbs]

What do you mean by "Fastmail SMS service"?

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by rjbs

What do you mean by "Fastmail SMS service"?

Some years ago, it was possible via sieve scripts to send SMS notifications. It was necessary to buy SMS credits if you wanted to use this feature. The capability appears to be gone, and I have a vague recollection of the announcement.

[n5bb]

In June of 2011, Fastmail enabled sending SMS messages to phones in the US via Sieve or directly from the Compose screen. You needed to buy SMS credits before using this features. I think it worked for some non-US phones before that time. As you can see below, this changed a few years later.

From a user notice sent out April 3, 2014:

Removing SMS Sending via the web interface or SMTP

It?s currently possible to send SMS messages directly from the FastMail compose screen. You have to buy some SMS credits first, but after that, you just include a number@sms email address in your to/cc/bcc addresses and it?ll convert the first 160 chars into an SMS to that number. This also works via SMTP, you send to number@sms.messagingengine.com. You also have to set an originator phone number for the personality you are using to send from. In theory, this is the phone number the SMS will appear to come from.
When this was first implemented almost 10 years ago, it was a really useful feature. Most people had feature phones that were slow to type SMS?s on. Using this feature, you could quickly type a message in the web interface/email client, and to the recipient it would appear to have come from your phone, so if they replied to it, the reply would go to your phone.
Since then though, the usefulness of this has dropped significantly. Most people have smartphones where it?s now much easier to tap our a quick message. Also, mobile operators became much more strict about setting arbitrary originator numbers and now most block such messages. In it?s current state, most messages sent from FastMail now appear to come from a fixed number, not the originator number people have set the personality to, so if someone replies to the SMS, the reply disappears rather than going to the original sender.
On top of this, this feature has been an ongoing source of fraud issues for us. We still regularly see accounts signed up with stolen credit cards for the sole purpose of sending SMS spam, even with our heavy rate limiting.
Because of these flaws, we?re going to remove the ability to send arbitrary messages to SMS numbers altogether. Note that this will NOT affect SMS forwarding rules or SMS two factor authentication. Both of those are definitely being kept and will continue to work.

Two years later, Fastmail ended their SMS login-related features. Here is the notice sent on July 22, 2016:

This is an important notice about upcoming changes to how you log in to your FastMail account.
As discussed on our blog, on Monday, 25th July we?ll be launching a range of new security features to provide greater protection in making sure you, and only you, can access your FastMail account. This will replace our existing "alternative logins" system.
As a user of our existing "alternative logins" system, you will need to make a few changes. You can see all the alternative logins you currently have set up by going to: https://www.fastmail.com/go/altlogins.
Any alternative logins of the types "OTP (One Time Password) Set", "OTP 1hr Set", "SMS 1hr Password Sender" or "Yubikey Online (1 factor)" will stop working on Monday. Also, any "Google Authenticator (OATH TOTP)" alternative logins without a base password will also stop working on Monday.
All other alternative logins (types "SMS Password Sender", "Regular Password", "Yubikey Online + Password (2 factor)", or "Google Authenticator (OATH TOTP)" with a base password) will continue to work until 31st August. Please note, from Monday you will be asked for any second factor after submitting your username and password, rather than entering it on the initial login page appended to your password.
After 31st August, these alternative logins will also stop working.
On Monday, 25th July or as soon as possible after that, we recommend that you migrate to the new security system. You can do that by logging into your account using your master password, and from the main menu at the top left selecting the "Password & Security" screen. From there, you can set up recovery options for your account, enable two-step verification, and create app and protocol specific passwords to use with 3rd party apps.
Regards,
The FastMail Team

I just tried creating a Sieve rule which used the enotify feature with the "tel" (telephone number) tag. The rule failed, so I think that you can't create a Sieve rule which sends a SMS notification anymore. Years ago Fastmail supported the "notify" Sieve extension, but now it's "enotify" and I believe that SMS hasn't been supported in many years.

Bill

[somdcomputerguy]

It sure was a bit of a gloomy day for me when the OTP login feature became non existent. Sure, probably with an https login page it wasn't really needed anyway, but I found it 'neat' in a James Bond kinda way.. I have an OTP add-on extension in my Squirrelmail installation.

- Bruce

[rjbs]

Originally Posted by n5bb

I just tried creating a Sieve rule which used the enotify feature with the "tel" (telephone number) tag. The rule failed, so I think that you can't create a Sieve rule which sends a SMS notification anymore. Years ago Fastmail supported the "notify" Sieve extension, but now it's "enotify" and I believe that SMS hasn't been supported in many years.

Correct. The expectation is that you'll use the Fastmail mobile app and notifications.

SMS sending has become massively more regulated in the past ten years, making things like this expensive, time consuming, and basically impractical to maintain.

[Terry]

Would be excellent for 2FA

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by Terry

Would be excellent for 2FA

Fastmail still allows use of SMS for backup 2FA, but passkeys or TOTP authentication are preferred. See:
https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/a...rification-2FA

Bill

[Terry]

Thanks Bill

[DumbGuy]

Some mobile carriers offer an email-to-SMS gateway (perhaps unadvertised), such that incoming emails get parsed and shrunk and sent to your mobile phone as SMS/txt/MMS. For USA AT&T customers, as an example, their addresses would be in the format: 5551234567@mms.att.net or ...@txt.att.net . More info here. Perhaps this may help some FM customers get SMS alerts of 1 kind or another.

[KerryJohnson]

I’ve been using it for a while and find it super convenient. I love how it helps me keep my number private, especially when signing up for new services or apps. I remember when I first started using disposable phone numbers; it felt like I was living in the future!

You can save yourself from spam and keep your inbox cleaner. Plus, if you ever need to drop a service, it’s easy to eliminate that temporary number. It’s like having a little shield around your actual number. If you haven't tried it yet, I recommend giving it a go. It might just be the thing you didn’t know you needed!