I’ve talked with a couple of Growlink users over the past month during my sweep of different “man, we really need text alerts” businesses. And they told me: Man, we really need text alerts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have Growlink handling different things (from irrigation and fertigation to climate and EC\/pH tracking). But what they don’t<\/em> have are text alerts when anything goes seriously wrong<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And they want<\/em> text alerts, because those cut through the noise better than email or push notifications ever could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, Growlink’s official recommendation is to use the email-to-text address from your cell phone carrier<\/strong> (like So you need an alternative. And, hey, good news: It’s really easy to set one up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this article, I’ll show you how to get your Growlink sensor alerts and offline alerts as texts in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I mentioned in the intro, Growlink’s official advice on how to get text alerts doesn’t actually work anymore. (I’ll cover it more later about why the cell phone carrier gateways all died.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the method<\/em> they describe will work, and that’s using email to text<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s how to set that up so it works in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growlink’s official method for getting text alerts is by using an email-to-text system. And that method still works, just not how they describe it \u2014 because the cell carriers’ email-to-text features are dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we’ll use a drop-in replacement<\/strong> for that method. And the service that works just like the carriers’ old email to SMS system is text.email<\/a>. (Plus it has a few other useful features for you that your cell phone provider didn’t.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Basically: You sign up, you get a special email to SMS address, and now you’re ready to send texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (And, if you need, it can also text other people on your team<\/a> \u2014 and even do it on individual schedules<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright, now in Growlink’s Portal 2.0, open the controller and click\u00a0Rules<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pick your rule folder and rule group, then scroll down to Alerts<\/strong>. Open an alert you already have, or click Add Alert<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the\u00a0Emails<\/strong>\u00a0field,\u00a0add your text.email address<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can also put a regular email address in too if you also want to get email alerts (that’s what Growlink recommends).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click\u00a0Save Changes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You will, I’m sorry to say, need to repeat this process individually for each alert where you want texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a controller goes offline, its sensor alerts can’t go out either. That’s why you want the offline alert as a text too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growlink sends an offline alert\u00a0when a controller goes more than 20 minutes without connecting to Growlink’s cloud<\/strong>. (Usually that’s because of a network or power outage.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Portal 2.0, click Settings<\/strong>, pick the controller, and click its Profile<\/strong> button (the cogwheel).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Add your text.email address to\u00a0Status Notification Emails<\/strong> and click\u00a0Save Changes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But… modules (like an ESM under a PIC) have their own offline alerts which you turn on separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click the three dots<\/strong> next to the module and click Edit<\/strong>. Turn on Enable Offline Alerts for this module<\/strong>, then click Update Controller<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don’t have to add your address again, though, since they go to the same email(s) as your controller alerts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that’s it \u2014 you’re all set up now and, ideally, this took you less than five minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For most grows, the email-to-text setup above is by far<\/em> the easiest way to get urgent alerts. It uses fields Growlink already has, it covers both sensor and offline alerts, and doesn’t depend on your cell carrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But yes, there are some other options…<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is what Growlink’s help articles, AI chatbot, and tutorial videos use for SMS alerts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They say you should type your number plus your carrier’s email-to-text domain (like\u00a0 And that was great advice in 2013. But today? <\/p>\n\n\n\n And your emails to those addresses fail silently, so you won’t know that an alert was supposed to come to you but didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So this is NOT a viable option anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every sensor alert has a\u00a0Send Push Notifications<\/strong>\u00a0toggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you’re here because you know what we all know about push notifications: They’re just as easy to miss as emails. They stack up, or they get buried, or they deliver silently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They just aren’t as urgent and unmissable as texts. I’d consider them a companion and not a true alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So of course the modern instinct is: Can’t I just build this myself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growlink’s integrations page mentions webhooks, but I can’t figure out how to use them (and their AI chatbot said it couldn’t help me). <\/p>\n\n\n\n But let’s imagine for a moment they did exist. Or you could set up your own email-to-text service using a provider like Twilio<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there are three major problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So yeah, you could build your own system, but there are more landmines hiding in it than you realize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You’ve seen the process now of how to get text alerts from Growlink when something major goes wrong with your system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it really is just three steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\nyour-number@vtext.com<\/code>) \u2014 and those are all either dead or dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGrowlink Text Alerts: Table of Contents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
How to Actually<\/em> Get Growlink Text Alerts (Since Their Official Instructions Don’t Work)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 1: Get an email-to-text address<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Step 2: Add your email-to-text address to your sensor alerts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Step 3: Add the address to your offline alerts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Aren’t There Other Ways to Get Growlink Alerts?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The cell carrier email-to-text method (the one Growlink uses)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
5551234567@vtext.com<\/code>) into the alert’s\u00a0Emails<\/strong>\u00a0field. Then your carrier\u00a0turns the email into a text<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
txt.att.net<\/code> email-to-text service on June 17, 2025.<\/li>\n\n\n\nvtext.com<\/code>\u00a0by March 31, 2027, and right now it’s a coin flip whether messages will get through.<\/li>\n\n\n\ntmomail.net<\/code>\u00a0is also shut down, and also stopped working in 2025.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nGrowlink push notifications<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Building your own with webhooks and an SMS provider<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Get Growlink SMS Alerts Live in the Next Five Minutes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n