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How to send MMS on an iPhone

August 20, 2009 by  
Filed under Apple, Gadgets and Accessories, Tips and Tutorials

9 Comments

Create iPhone ContactMy friend recently upgraded to an iPhone and asked how she could send photos to her friends. Inspired by my friend, I wrote a tutorial on how to send MMS on an iPhone.

If you are accustomed to taking camera photos and then sending them via multimedia message (mms) to people, you’ll be sad to know that the iPhone lacks this mms feature. Luckily, there’s a workaround for this. What you want to do is email the photo to your friend’s phone. This would require you to know who their carrier is though. Here is a list of some popular US cellphone carriers and their mms email:

US Carrier MMS Email
AT&T mms.att.com
Sprint / Nextel messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile tmomail.net
Verizon vzwpix.com
Virgin vmobl.net

So in this example, let’s pretend our friend John Smith lives in the US, his cellphone number is 1 (234) 567-8910, and his cellphone carrier is T-Mobile. To get his phone’s email address, we would need to append his 10-digit phone number to carrier’s email address format. So John’s mms email would be 2345678910@tmomail.net.

Here are the steps on how to send John Smith a picture message:

  1. Edit one of your contacts. (Pictured above)
  2. Copy and paste their number into the email field. Remove any special characters.
    1. Click on the phone number.
    2. If you have the iPhone 3.0 OS, press down on the number, and menu will pop up. Select “Select All” and then “Copy,” then “Cancel” on the top left.
    3. Click on “Add New Email”
    4. Press in the email field until a bubble appears, let go, and click on “Paste.”
    5. Now edit the number and remove all special characters, and append the correct carrier email.
    6. If you are running iPhone 2.2.1 or lower, skip the copy/paste steps and add in the number manually, appending the carrier email.
  3. Save the contact by clicking on “Done”
  4. Now go to the Photo app and find the photo you want to send.
  5. At the bottom, click on the leftmost button and select “Email Photo.”
  6. This will add your photo into the Mail app to send.
  7. Tap on the “To” field and a plus will show up.
  8. Click on the +
  9. Find your contact.
    1. If the user only has the one email account, it’ll select it by default.
    2. If the user more than one email account, select one by tapping on it.
  10. Once you’re back in your mail app, hit “Send.”

Then your friend will get the picture, and it’ll be just like before. However, when they reply back, it’ll be sent to your email. So be sure to check there as well. Happy MMS-ing!

Note: You would only have to do Steps 1-3 once for each contact.

Pictured below are Steps 3, 5 and 6, respectively.

iPhone Contact after Saving Select a Photo to email Photo in Email

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  • http://djsteen.com/wp djsteen

    Heh. Nice workaround, Daynah!

    Hilariously enough, Australia — the country I often refer to as technologically behind — has had MMS from launch day (June 26th, 2009) of the iPhone 3GS.

    That said, some carriers have Visual Voicemail and some don't. My carrier (Optus) doesn't. :(

    The plans here are actually pretty good too. There's even the option of a 12 month plan.

    Whoops, this wasn't about iPhones in other countries… back to the topic: I actually don't use MMS that much. I never used it on my Nokia because it was/is too expensive. MMS is included in the unlimited messaging on my plan, but I still have only used it a total of 3 times.

    I prefer using the PixelPipe app to distribute my photos (in full resolution) to all the photo sharing sites like Brightkite and Flickr; videos to video sharing sites like Viddler.

  • http://twitter.com/Lena18 Lena Kumar

    Awesome article and very well explained!! Thanks Daynah!

  • http://php-princess.net Daynah

    Thanks for the comment djsteen!

    I don't use MMS much either. I end up sending photos to BrightKite (which also sends to Flickr) and Facebook as well.

    Some people who are very new to the iPhone are not use to posting their photos on social networks, so this will help them ease into the transition. :)

    So MMS is available on the iPhone 3Gs? That's cool! Could you show me some screenshots? Makes me wonder why AT&T/Apple doesn't have it in the U.S.

    The U.S. misses you by the way. Come back and visit soon. :)

  • http://php-princess.net Daynah

    Thank YOU! Thanks for being the inspiration. And let me know if you have anymore questions about your new iPhone. :)

  • http://djsteen.com/wp djsteen

    Heh. Nice workaround, Daynah!

    Hilariously enough, Australia — the country I often refer to as technologically behind — has had MMS from launch day (June 26th, 2009) of the iPhone 3GS.

    That said, some carriers have Visual Voicemail and some don't. My carrier (Optus) doesn't. :(

    The plans here are actually pretty good too. There's even the option of a 12 month plan.

    Whoops, this wasn't about iPhones in other countries… back to the topic: I actually don't use MMS that much. I never used it on my Nokia because it was/is too expensive. MMS is included in the unlimited messaging on my plan, but I still have only used it a total of 3 times.

    I prefer using the PixelPipe app to distribute my photos (in full resolution) to all the photo sharing sites like Brightkite and Flickr; videos to video sharing sites like Viddler.

  • http://twitter.com/Lena18 Lena Kumar

    Awesome article and very well explained!! Thanks Daynah!

  • http://php-princess.net Daynah

    Thanks for the comment djsteen!

    I don't use MMS much either. I end up sending photos to BrightKite (which also sends to Flickr) and Facebook as well.

    Some people who are very new to the iPhone are not use to posting their photos on social networks, so this will help them ease into the transition. :)

    So MMS is available on the iPhone 3Gs? That's cool! Could you show me some screenshots? Makes me wonder why AT&T/Apple doesn't have it in the U.S.

    The U.S. misses you by the way. Come back and visit soon. :)

  • http://php-princess.net Daynah

    Thank YOU! Thanks for being the inspiration. And let me know if you have anymore questions about your new iPhone. :)

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