I am a Google Voice user, but will also confess that I like the service more than I probably should, kind of borderline fanboyish. But that is OK because at least I can admit my issues. That said, I thought I would take a minute to offer a tip for Google Voice and Android users.
Google Voice (in your web control panel) has many features, and some may have gone unnoticed due to the fact the service works pretty well out-of-the-box.
This tip deals with a little workaround to the current limits that are in the Android Google Voice app in dealing with how often you can refresh your inbox. The given options are 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 60 and never. Now for those that really use the service as a main point of communication — even 5 minutes is far to long to be waiting for SMS messages. Of course, that is not because anything that I am receiving is all that important, but because people have come to expect SMS messages to be delivered instantly.
That said, here is the tip that will not only get you your SMS messages and voicemails quicker than 5 minutes, but may also help to save your phones batter life just a little bit.
Turn your Google Voice app settings to manual and have your SMS and voicemail messages delivered via email.
There it is, simple and easy, and by doing this you should even save a little battery life on your phone.
Additionally, by doing this you will also have a slightly more unified inbox experience because you will also be able to have (and archive) those SMS and voicemails along with your regular email. Perfect for someone like myself who lives out of their email account.
And this tip works well because you are already checking your email on a regular basis. Why check two things? Not to mention you can listen to, and read your voicemail from the email message. You can also reply to any incoming SMS messages directly from your email inbox. So you are not really losing anything here, just switching how its delivered.
In order to adjust those settings you will need to login to your Google Voice account from the web. Just login and navigate to Settings, which is located in the top right corner. From there click Voicemail & SMS and then under Voicemail Notifications you should check the box for “Email the message to” and also double check to make sure that email is the email that you are checking on your phone. In this field, then make sure the “Send a text (SMS) message to” field is not checked because you will address that next.
Then under that, look for “SMS Forwarding” and check the box next to “Forward SMS messages to my email” and again that should be the email on your phone.
Once done, just click Save Changes.
Afterward there is just one other setting to check, and I cannot remember if this is check by default or not. Go to Phones, and then click on the phone or phones that you have listed and click Edit for each one. Once there you will see a setting called “Receive SMS on this phone.” You should uncheck, or just make sure it is not checked. Then click Save.
Alas, now you have quick notifications of your Google Voice SMS and voicemail messages and do not have to have another app polling on a regular basis.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I'm running out the door but I had to comment real quick. This tip of yours solves not only the time for notifications, but also one of the biggest issues I had using google voice. I now don't have text messages in two message boxes. One in my GV in box and the other in my phones messaging inbox. Thanks. This phone in 5 min has become more usable.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
GV by default has "Receive SMS on Phone" checked. I also realized that when I setup GV first time 3 days ago. Thanks for the tip, it makes GV mor estreamlined.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
man, I am still begging for an invite to Google Voice. Anyone got a free invite that can hook me up? hit me up with a reply if you have one to share. I REALLY want to check this product out.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I have an invite. Give me your email.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
man, you are the pim-dilldly-imp! it's jdsangster@gmail.com
November 20th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I've been doing this since it was available, and it's a great feature. One drawback: responding on your phone via the Gmail client auto-quotes the incoming message. So while you RECEIVE messages quickly through Gmail, responding is still best done via the GV client. It's a bit of a pain because you still have to switch apps, but I prefer it because the push Gmail comes faster and as others have mentioned, I only need to worry about one inbox.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
There has to be a way you can turn the auto quotes off? I would hope it is possible.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Unfortunately, there isn't within the native Gmail application on the phone. It's a sad state of affairs, but that's how it is.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
@Baldmeistr When you SMS via email and are responding to someone the quoted text below is stripped out of the reply. I was worried about that myself. After testing I can confirm that is the case. It looks like they will take all of the text until it hits the first line of white space.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
When you SMS via email and are responding to someone the quoted text below is stripped out of the reply. I was worried about that myself. After testing I can confirm that is the case. It looks like they will take all of the text until it hits the first line of white space.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
That's officially awesome. I love Google even more, now. Thanks for testing my untested assertion! (Does this error qualify me for a job at Fox News?)
November 20th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Yes, yes it does.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Send me an email areyouageek (at) gmail (dot) com and I will hook you up. Just give me the email address that you want it sent to.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Do my friends have to call my gvoice number or can they use my verizon #….. It will be hard to remind friends to use my gvoice #. I would like it if my verizon sms or voice email could be sent to my gvoice as I would like it to be headquarters. I have to many #'s home, cell, wife cell, and now google voice if and when I get it…. Does any one have an invite so I can play with it….. I sent out an invite to google 3 weeks ago and still no answer ?
November 20th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
@Robinson,
What's your email address? For a GVoice invite.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:46 am
morton.shenker at gmail dot com
If I'm not too late. Thank you
November 21st, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Anyone have an invite so I can try GV out? If you don't it'd be greatly appreciated. My email is lsscofield (at) gmail dot com
November 21st, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I've been hoping for one too (just got the droid and am loving all of the other google goodness.) My email is my username at gmail if anyone has an invite they'd like to toss my way.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:18 am
I like your tip, but get way too much email to sift through it for sms and voicemail. I've done something similar. I've downloaded Handcent SMS (awesome and free) and configured GV to forward the SMS to my cell, and shut off notifications in GV. So, GV only functions to dial calls, and if I've never SMS'd someone before, I'll send it from GV to get GV's number for that person, and save it to their contact profile (usually a 406 area code).
All told, I get all the features of Handcent + Google Voice + instant notifications. I can still reply and send SMS from my computer using GV.com or the Adobe Air GVoice app. This is also handy if you receive SMS on both GV and your cell number. You get one inbox to check, one app, one set of settings, etc.
December 14th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
This is an excellent article, I’ll be sure to add this site to my bookmarks
December 15th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I think this is the way to go, for now. GV needs to better integrate the SMS with the phone. Right now, using their basic SMS client is tiresome, it crashes a lot, and sends duplicate texts all the time. Overall, it's annoying but we are on the bleeding edge of mobile voip & unified communications.
Pros:
+ uses standard SMS clients
+ instant notification
+ not cluttered up in an email message
+ can SMS from the PC
Cons:
- still costs to send texts
- contacts and contact auto-complete boxes are now littered with 406 numbers along with their reg numbers
- takes ~20 seconds per person to add the GV number
- with or without adding the 406 numbers to your contacts, each text message displays the contact's name before the actual message text, for each message.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:09 am
I would like an invite if the offer's still open. I am a new user and trying to get the most out of this device.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:12 am
I am a new user of this phone and have traditionally used Outlook to organize my corportate emails, calender, to do lists and tasks. It seems as thought there are a lot of apps out there. Can anyone get me started with some suggestions to stay organized using the new apps for calender, task, to do lists etc?