Send an SMS Message with C# in 30 Seconds

Time to read: 1 minute

April 26, 2016
Written by
Marcos Placona
Twilion

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You’re building a .NET app and you need to send SMS messages. What if I told you you can get it done in 30 seconds with the Twilio API? Here’s a video showing you how quick it is to send an SMS message with C# and the Twilio API.

Video: How To Send SMS with C# in 30 Seconds

But you can’t copy and paste from a video, so here’s all the code you will need.

Install the Twilio helper library for .NET to your project using the package manager console.

`PM> Install-Package Twilio`

Import the Twilio namespace into your class and initialize the Twilio REST Client passing your Account SID and Auth Token, which are available on the Twilio account portal:

using System;
using Twilio;
using Twilio.Rest.Api.V2010.Account;
using Twilio.Types;

namespace twilio_sms
{
        class Program
        {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                TwilioClient.Init(
                    Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID"),
                    Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN"));
            }
        }
}

You will need three things now:

  • The Twilio number you are sending the message from
  • The number you are sending the message to
  • The body of the message

Add those into the MessageResource.Create method which will send a text message:

MessageResource.Create(
    to: new PhoneNumber("** YOUR PHONE NUMBER **"),
    from: new PhoneNumber("** YOUR TWILIO NUMBER **"),
    body: "Ahoy from Twilio!");

Now run it and wait for the magic to happen.

c-demo.gif

 

We can’t wait to see what you build

You’ve sent an SMS message and now you’re ready to take on the world of communications. Take a look at the Twilio REST API documentation to see what else you can do and the documentation for working with the .NET helper library. Then check out our tutorials to see some more examples, like: sending SMS notifications, masking phone numbers for user privacy or two factor authentication for user security.

Excited about the possibilities? Then let me know! Hit me up on Twitter or just give me a shout in the comments below.

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