Receiving submissions via SMS

Contributors can submit memories by sending a text message. No app download or account required.

How it works

  1. The contributor texts your book code to the Memorybook phone number.
  2. They receive a reply asking for their memory (text and/or a photo).
  3. They send their message, and it appears in your moderation queue (or goes live if auto-approve is on).

Enabling SMS

SMS is available on paid plans. To enable it, open your book's Channels page and flip the SMS switch. SMS is on by default for new books when your plan and our platform both support it; you can always pause it from the same page. See which plans include SMS.

What contributors can send

  • Text messages (up to 1600 characters)
  • Photos via MMS (up to 20 MB each)

Channel features

  • Session persistence: after the first message with a book code, follow-up texts go to the same book without repeating the code.
  • Name collection: if enabled in book settings (Ask SMS contributors for their name), new contributors are prompted for their name before their first submission. This can be toggled off if you prefer anonymous SMS contributions. If a new contributor's very first text already includes a photo, the photo is saved with their memory and the same reply asks for their name.
  • Contributor identity: the sender's phone number is captured and linked to their user account.
  • Duplicate protection: webhook retries from the messaging provider do not create duplicate submissions.
  • Rate limit: 20 submissions per hour per phone number.

Commands

You can text these commands instead of a story. Both bare keyword form (HELP) and slash-prefix form (/help) work; case does not matter.

  • START: Welcome message. With a book code (START BOOKCODE), connects to that book.
  • SWITCH BOOKCODE: Switch to a different book.
  • BOOK: Show which book you're currently connected to.
  • BOOKS: List every book you're a member of. Requires that this number is verified on your account.
  • JOIN: Create an Our Memory Book account from this number. We'll text back a one-time link to finish on the web.
  • NEWBOOK TITLE: Create a new memory book and bind this number to it. If you have a paid plan slot, we'll ask which plan to use; otherwise the book is created on the Free plan automatically.
  • STORIES: View your 3 most recent submissions to the current book.
  • HELP: List all available commands.

Linking your phone number

If you have an Our Memory Book account, you can link your phone number so that memories you send via SMS are matched to your profile.

  1. Go to Account Settings on the website and enter your phone number in the Phone Number section.
  2. We'll text you a 6-digit code. Enter it on the same page to confirm the number.
  3. Once verified, any SMS submissions previously sent from that number are automatically linked to your profile.

You can resend the code or unlink the number from the same page at any time. Verification codes expire after 10 minutes.

Tips

  • Include the phone number and book code on printed materials alongside your QR code.
  • SMS is great for older relatives who may not be comfortable with apps or websites.
  • Standard carrier messaging rates apply for contributors.
  • Email verification (verified contributor mode) is not available for SMS submissions.

Photo dates

For memory-collection books (those dated by when the memory happened, the default for tributes, weddings, birthdays and the like), if a contributor texts a photo without a date attached (texts often strip it in transit), we may reply asking when it was taken. They just reply with a date like “June 2015” or “6/10/2025” and we'll place the memory in the right spot on the timeline, or they can reply skip if they’re not sure. Today's date is a valid answer: we read it against the book's own timezone, which you set in book settings, so a reply sent late in the evening still counts as that day. Personal-journal books (dated by when it was shared) don’t ask; the photo is simply dated by when it arrives.

If a photo doesn’t arrive

On the rare occasion a texted photo can’t be saved (a transient download hiccup), the contributor gets a reply telling them to send it again rather than a normal confirmation, so nothing is ever silently dropped.

Ready to try it? Create your free memory book