Sending IMs through e-mail

[Herpes Melodie]

I was wondering if there's a possibility to send an IM, by e-mail. I know one can reply to offline IMs that end up in the e-mail box, but what about sending e-mails directly as IMs to people in-world? 

I checked wiki for answers, but couldn't find any. Thanks in advance. :)

[Jenni Darkwatch]

In a sense you can... go to http://my.secondlife.com and log in. Click on "Inbox" on the left, then "New Message" on the right. Your friends will get a popup prompting them to read the message. Not quite IM, but sort-of the same as replying via email. It only works for sending IMs to friends.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Yes you can do that, but you need the very long email address for the avatar which includes their avi key.  The easiest way to get this is to have them send you an IM when your offline and your IM's are going to your email, then save the address in your email address book.

[Herpes Melodie]

Cool, thanks both. Thats just what I needed. Thanks again!

[Snickers Snook]

But I think that long email addy is only valid for 3 days. Once it expires, you can't send anything to it. It just bounces. I think.

[Pamela Galli]

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Snickers Snook wrote:

But I think that long email addy is only valid for 3 days. Once it expires, you can't send anything to it. It just bounces. I think.

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Last I heard, this is correct.

[Kenbro Utu]

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Instant-messages/ta-p/700089

 

The time limit is actually 5 days.  The email address is actually for the current IM session, not the avatar, so the email address is only generated after initiation of an IM in world.  

[PeterCanessa Oh]

As a more general-purpose solution you can have an 'email server' scripted object rezzed in-world.  You can email any SL object so you would send yours the avatar you were trying to get in touch with and the message to forward to them.  The script would look-up the avatar and send them the message as an IM.

[Snickers Snook]

I know I've had some bounce after 3 days but that may just be general SL flakiness. Thanks for the link.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

A scripted object would, I believe, not work well for two-way communication though. It could, I presume, send a HUD version of itself to the intended recipient and thus allow two-way communication by allowing llTextBox entries to be sent back.

Or just pick up the phone and call Or use an external IM client, which probably a lot of people do anyway.

[Snickers Snook]

I use Metabolt (and Radegast). Both are lightweight text viewers that work well for this sort of thing. You still have to be connected to SL so not quite the IM to email solution you might want but useful on a laptop or when trying to work in some pig program like Photoshop.

There are many 3rd party scripts and gadgets that will send email using a sort of Leave a message function -- but the person has to be able to "touch" the object that sends the message to trigger it.