Android Send SMS Tutorial

In this Android tutorial, I will walk you through to create an Android app to send SMS. It would be cool to have our own SMS application to send SMS messages.

There can be missing features in the SMS application that comes by default with our Android phone. We can use the example application here and build on top of it according to our needs.

Application is simple and easy to build. SmsManager class takes care of sending the SMS message. We just need to get an instance of it and send the SMS message. We need to add permission to SEND_SMS in the Android manifest file.

SMS Application

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Just note the permission added to send sms in the below manifest file.

AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.javapapers.androidsms">

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.SEND_SMS" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity
            android:name=".SendSmsActivity"
            android:label="@string/app_name">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>
</manifest>

activity_sms.xml

This layout file has the mobile number to send SMS and the SMS message to be sent.

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/toPhoneNumberTV"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Phone Number" />

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/toPhoneNumberET"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:inputType="phone"/>

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/smsMessageTV"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="SMS Message" />

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/smsMessageET"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:inputType="textMultiLine"/>

    <Button android:id="@+id/sendSMSBtn"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Send SMS"/>

</LinearLayout>

SendSmsActivity.java

Here is the Android Activity class. Its just one thing, instantiate the SmsManager class and send SMS using it.

package com.javapapers.androidsms;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.telephony.SmsManager;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class SendSmsActivity extends Activity {

    Button sendSMSBtn;
    EditText toPhoneNumberET;
    EditText smsMessageET;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_sms);
        sendSMSBtn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.sendSMSBtn);
        toPhoneNumberET = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.toPhoneNumberET);
        smsMessageET = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.smsMessageET);
        sendSMSBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(View view) {
                sendSMS();
            }
        });
    }

    protected void sendSMS() {
        String toPhoneNumber = toPhoneNumberET.getText().toString();
        String smsMessage = smsMessageET.getText().toString();
        try {
            SmsManager smsManager = SmsManager.getDefault();
            smsManager.sendTextMessage(toPhoneNumber, null, smsMessage, null, null);
            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "SMS sent.",
                    Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),
                    "Sending SMS failed.",
                    Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

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