Maybe your phone’s dead, or you just haven’t had the heart to upgrade to the unlimited text message plan from your wireless provider. Or maybe cell service is down, and you still need to get in touch with someone asap. Google Talk has been helpful for making phone calls for years, but recently Google launched a service to let you send free text messages too.
The first thing to do is enable SMS. Once you’re logged into Gmail, go to the gear symbol at the top right and select “settings.” From there, choose the “Labs” tab toward the righthand side. The Labs apps should be displayed alphabetically, so scroll down to “SMS,” or just search for SMS in the search bar. Change the radio button to enable, and then scroll down and save your changes. Google’s design sense is a little lacking here, so the save changes button isn’t obvious, but don’t forget it!
