The moment it happens

Forward texts to your Vonage number by email

Every SMS sent to my Vonage number shows up in my inbox with the sender's number.

Runs: The moment it happens
Apps: Vonage
AI: Not needed
Access: API key/secret (to set webhook)

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: when my Vonage number receives an SMS, email me at ops@example.com with the sender's number, the time and the message text.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A small business buys a Vonage number for customer replies, appointment confirmations or delivery notices. Incoming texts land in the Vonage dashboard, where no one checks them. A patient replies 'cancel' to a reminder, a driver texts that the gate is locked, and the message waits unread for a day because it did not arrive in the inbox where the team already works.

When someone texts your Vonage number, Vonage sends the message to a webhook. The automation acknowledges it immediately with a 200 response, so Vonage does not retry, and then emails you the sender's number, the text and the time it was received. The email arrives seconds after the SMS.

It is especially handy for shared numbers, where several teammates need to see replies without logging in to any telecom console.

What you get out of it

Replies reach people who check email
Texts show up where the team already looks, so a cancellation or a question gets handled the same hour instead of the next time someone remembers to open the Vonage dashboard and scroll through messages.
Quick 200 response avoids duplicates
Vonage retries webhooks that are not acknowledged. Replying right away keeps a single text from arriving in your inbox three times, which would otherwise make people doubt whether the customer really sent it repeatedly.
Sender number included
Each email shows who texted, so you can call back or reply immediately without hunting for the number in a log, which matters when a customer is waiting for an answer about a booking.
A searchable record of conversations
Inbox search finds a message from last month by keyword or phone number, which a telecom dashboard typically makes difficult, and it helps settle a dispute about what a customer said and when.
Shared access without shared logins
Sending the email to a team alias lets several people see inbound texts without anyone sharing credentials to the Vonage account, which keeps billing and number settings in the hands of the people who should have them.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Each time someone texts your Vonage number, Vonage tells ClickRuntime straight away.
The automation picks out the sender's number, the time and the message.
You get an email with those details, like "Running 10 min late for the Acme delivery".

Before it runs live

Connect Vonage
Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings

What you get

RunsThe moment it happens

Forward texts to your Vonage number by emailjust nowSucceeded

Email · SMS from +447700900456From: +447700900456 Time: 2026-10-19 08:42:10 Running 10 min late for the Acme delivery

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Vonage steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

forward_inbound_sms_to_email.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_event, notify

@on_event
def handle(event):
    sms = event.json or {}
    if not sms.get("msisdn"):
        return {"skipped": "not an inbound SMS"}
    notify.email_me(f"SMS from +{sms['msisdn']}",
                    f"From: +{sms['msisdn']}\nTo: +{sms.get('to')}\nTime: {sms.get('message-timestamp')}\n\n{sms.get('text', '')}")
    return {"emailed": True}

FAQ

Common questions

Do I need to configure anything in Vonage for this to work?

Yes. In the Vonage dashboard, set the inbound SMS webhook URL for your number to the address ClickRuntime provides. After that, every text sent to the number is delivered to the automation as it arrives, within moments.

Can it forward texts from only certain senders?

It can. Because the sender's number is in the payload, the email step can run only for numbers on a list, or skip known automated senders such as your own test phone, so the inbox only gets the messages that need a person.

Does it handle long messages split into parts?

Vonage can deliver long texts as concatenated parts. The email carries the message as delivered in each webhook, so very long messages may arrive as consecutive emails depending on how the sender's carrier splits them up.

What permissions does it need?

API key/secret (to set webhook). Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run for each event the app sends.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a schedule