Esmska

Esmska is a cross-platform and open source software project that allows you to send SMS (short text messages) to any mobile phone number, in any country with minimum effort. The software supports a wide range of mobile phone networks (gateways), including Vodafone, O2, Orange or T-mobile, as well as numerous countries.

Features at a glance

Key features include support for sending SMS messages through various gateways, support for local or international networks, support for free or paid networks, built-in history for sent SMS messages, as well as support for sending SMS to a group of people simultaneously.

Another interesting feature is the ability to import contacts from third-party applications or vCard files. It features a pluggable gateway system that allows users to add support for more gateways, and it’s highly configurable.

Sending SMS was never so easy!

When opening the application for the first time, the user must input the default country prefix number by choosing a country from the drop-down list. Pressing the “Finish” button will close the country selection dialog and open the main window, from where users can send SMS by entering the recipient, choosing a gateway and writing the message.

Under the hood, supported OSes and availability

Being written entirely in the Java/JavaScript programming languages, the application supports GNU/Linux, BSD, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. Both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures are supported at this time.

While the developers provide a source archive, which can be compiled and installed on any of the supported OSes, they also give users detailed instructions on how to install the application on various Linux distributions, including Arch Linux, Fedora, Gentoo, Mageia, openSUSE and Ubuntu.

Bottom line

All in all, Esmska is a great, portable and free application for sending SMS to any mobile phone number in any country from the comfort of your Linux, BSD, Windows or Mac desktop.

What is new in this release:

• don't crash with gateways with unknown message length ( issue #463 )
• always set problem detail when sending is unsuccessful ( issue #464 )
• improve user signature handling

What is new in version 1.7:

• gateway updates
• moved signature to message start (thanks Petr Matas, https://github.com/kparal/esmska/pull/8)
• added a way to easily add new contacts from unknown numbers (thanks tomas kozak, https://github.com/kparal/esmska/pull/12, issue #255 )
• When a message is split into several fragments (to be sent separately), they are no longer visible as separate pieces in the history (which makes it hard to forward the message), but they are instead visible as the original single message. (thanks Lenka Saidlova, https://github.com/kparal/esmska/pull/10, issue #185 )
• gateway script API changed: removed SENDER_NAME, getExtraSignatureLength() and getMaxParts()
• show the user signature inside the message text
• split message text by word boundaries (thanks Pavel Zak, https://github.com/kparal/esmska/pull/13, issue #110 )

What is new in version 1.6:

• Reverted back the change from version 1.5, because if caused problems with recent Java versions. As a result. [CZ]t-zones gateway stays broken, because of their certificate issues.

What is new in version 1.5:

• Trust self-signed SSL certificates

What is new in version 1.4:

• fixed gateway [CZ]T-mobile ( issue #438 )
• be faster when sending successive messages for [CZ]T-mobile
• [CZ]t-zones: fix gateway for users of Mych5 tariff ( issue #440 , thanks Martin Pavlasek)
• [CZ]O2_(registrace): fix detection of invalid credentials ( issue #437 )
• [LT]dos.lt: add sender number support ( issue 445 )
• [CZ]T-mobile, [CZ]t-zones: fix certificate problems ( issue #443 )
• [CZ]PoslatSMS.cz: removed gateway due to frequent complaints ( issue #390 )
• compose a whole message from its parts when editing queue (issue #152, thanks Tomas Jiricek)
• [CZ]O2_(registrace): remove captcha, not needed anymore ( issue #433 )

What is new in version 1.3:

• notify when paid SMS is sent for [CZ]t-zones and [CZ]Vodafone park (question 202235)
• fixed gateway [CZ]O2 SMSender
• fixed gateways [CZ]O2 and [CZ]O2 (registrace) (thanks Filip Oscadal, issue #423 )
• fixed gateways [CZ]Vodafone and [CZ]Vodafone park (thanks Filip Oscadal, issue #426 )
• fixed gateways [CZ]T-mobile and [CZ]t-zones ( issue #431 , issue #432 )
• fixed gateway [CZ]Vodafone ( issue #435 )
• don't update gateways that require more recent program version ( issue #425 )
• fixed gateways [CZ]O2 and [CZ]O2 (registrace) ( issue #436 )

What is new in version 1.2:

• send usage info less frequently to avoid high server load
• fix compilation errors on Java 7
• fixed gateway [CZ]O2 (registrace) ( issue #416 )
• fix mysterious crashes when configuring gateways ( issue #415 )
• add Mac OS packaging scripts

What is new in version 1.1:

• ignore diacritical marks when searching in contact list
• disable notification icon in Gnome 3 ( issue #404 )
• [CZ]O2 (registrace): fix problems when sending messages too quickly ( issue #412 )
• [CZ]O2 and [CZ]O2 (registrace): fix gateway changes ( issue #413 )
• add new gateway [INT]Odorik.cz ( issue #309 )
• fix gateway [CZ]KlikniAVolej ( issue #414 )

What is new in version 1:

• [CZ]t-zones: fix sending long messages when using english interface ( issue #397 )
• new program icon (thanks Vitezslav Valka)
• don't crash when no gateway credentials are filled in but the gateway requires it
• added new gateway [CZ]SMS Manager (thanks Lukas Pulda)

Requirements:

• Java 2 Standard Edition Runtime Environment