Create, edit, manage groups for SMS

[GMSiru]

At work, I need to be able to send a group text to our nonprofit organization's staff of almost 50 (spread over a wide area) when -- for example -- our internet service is down. They use a variety of phones and some are with AT&T and some with Verizon (and one with Sprint).

I thought creating a group in the Verizon Message+ app could work, but here are problems I encountered:

1. the message does not look like it's coming from me, even if I'm in the recipients' contacts. Instead, they see a seemingly random number as the sender.
2. each time I edit the group membership, it blasts a notification to each recipient - NOT COOL!
3. some people are not getting the messages, some report getting duplicates.

Is there a way to make this work using Message+ on my Samsung S8 Android phone, or can anyone recommend a better app? When internet works, I have a distribution list in Outlook and can send an email message to their phone as a text (number@vtext.com and number@txt.att.net) -- but that does not work when we have no internet!

Seems like one should be able to make a group in Contacts, but I have not found a way to do that on this phone. Thank you in advance for any suggestions or guidance you can offer!

[bearone21]

what's wrong the the default messaging app??

[dias_vzw]

GMSiru, I definitely understand your concern. Verizon Messages is a wonderful feature to use for group texting. However, you did mention that some of the people you are texting have service with other carriers. Keep in mind that Verizon Messages is a Verizon feature and that other users may or may not receive messages in a group text. If they do not subscribe to the feature then using Verizon Messages for the group text would not be the best option. We recommend using the default messaging app that comes installed on your phone already. It is the white and yellow envelope icon on your phone. If you tap on it and say yes to set as default, then you can set up the group text via that messaging app. Let us know if this helps.

DiaS_VZW
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