Mobile Help Center

Google SMS doesn't seem to work on my phone. What should I do?
Google SMS is still in beta and we're working hard to make it better. If you've encountered a problem, try these steps: Check to see if text messaging is enabled on your phone and on your mobile plan. If not, or you're not sure, call your mobile service provider. Note that Google SMS works on all major mobile providers in the US, including Alltel, Cincinnati Bell, Cingular/AT&T, Nextel, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Virgin Mobile. Make sure you sent the text message to the 5-digit US shortcode 46645 Double check that your query is a specialized one that will trigger results in Google SMS Try using one of these queries and see if you get a response: 'pizza 94040' 'Finding Nemo dvd price' 'define lemur' Try to send a text message to your own phone number. If you can't, contact your mobile provider. Here are some additional things you should know: If you've just switched mobile providers while keeping the same phone number (i.e. you've ported your number), Google SMS may not work immediately. You will get no results if your phone is configured to add signatures to all outgoing text messages. You will have to turn off the signature feature in order to receive Google SMS results. US shortcodes are not supported on T-Mobile prepaid service, which means that unfortunately, you currently can't use Google SMS with T-Mobile prepaid. Any queries containing the following characters will not receive any results:
[ \ ] ^ _ { | } ~ ` Google SMS currently supports the default GSM 3.38 character set, which contains all English letters, digits, and some symbols. Even if your mobile phone or service provider supports the above characters, they won't be recognized by Google SMS. If you are trying to find the answer to "10 to the power of 2," please try sending "10**2" or "10 to the power of 2" instead of "10^2."