---
title: Schedule a text (SMS Send Later)
---
# Schedule a text (SMS Send Later)

## What it is

**SMS Send Later** lets you queue an outbound text and have Omniscio send it
automatically at a time you choose — once, or on a recurring schedule (daily,
weekdays, weekends, or specific days of the week). It is the texting counterpart
of the agent **Send Later** feature, but instead of deferring a reply into a
Claude session it sends a real SMS through your selected SMS provider (Pushbullet
or native), exactly as if you had typed it and pressed Send yourself.

The one caveat every scheduler in Omniscio shares: **Omniscio has to be running at the
scheduled moment for the text to go out.** If your computer is asleep or Omniscio is
closed when a text comes due, it fires the next time Omniscio is running and SMS is
connected — it waits rather than failing.

**Not the same as the other two "later" features.** The agent _Send Later_
defers a reply into a live Claude session; _Scheduled Messages_ drops a note into
your own inbox. SMS Send Later sends a **text to a phone number**.

## Where to find it

In the SMS panel: open **New SMS**, write the text, then use **Schedule text**. Pending sends are listed in a collapsible **Scheduled** section of the panel.

## How it behaves

### How to use it

**Scheduling a text** is done from the desktop app (the same places New-SMS
compose lives):

1. **From New SMS.** Open the SMS panel, click **New SMS** (pencil icon), enter a
   recipient and message, then **press and hold the Send button** (about half a
   second) instead of tapping it. A quick tap still sends right away.
2. **From inside a conversation.** Type a message in the reply box and **press and
   hold the Send button**. A small corner mark on the button hints the gesture, and
   its tooltip reads "Send — hold to schedule for later". (Holding is a desktop
   gesture; on a phone, Send just sends.)
3. **Pick when.** The scheduler dialog opens prefilled with your recipient and
   message. Choose a **Time** and a **Repeat** option (Once / Daily / Weekdays /
   Weekends / Custom days), or — faster — type the timing in plain English into the
   **When** box: _"tomorrow at 2:30pm"_, _"every weekday at 8am"_, _"Friday 5pm"_.
   Omniscio fills the Time, Repeat, and (for one-offs) Date for you, with a one-line
   preview of what it understood. It only ever fills the _schedule_ — your message
   is never touched.
4. **Schedule it.** Click **Schedule text** (or Ctrl+Enter). The text is queued.

**Seeing and cancelling** pending texts works everywhere (desktop and mobile):

- A **banner inside the conversation** lists that thread's pending scheduled texts,
  each with a **Cancel** link.
- A collapsible **"Scheduled" section** in the SMS panel lists _every_ pending
  scheduled text across all conversations in one place, each with **Cancel**.

Cancelling removes the text before it sends; nothing goes out behind your back.

### What happens when it fires

A background checker runs every 30 seconds. When a scheduled text comes due it is
sent through the **same path as a normal text** — so the sent message appears in
the conversation thread just like any other, and the conversation's inbox
attention clears. A recurring schedule then advances to its next occurrence; a
one-off is done.

If a send fails (e.g. a bad number or a transient carrier error), Omniscio retries it
on the next few checks. If it keeps failing, a **recurring** schedule skips that
one occurrence and carries on to the next — a single bad send can never wedge the
whole schedule — while a **one-off** is marked done so it stops retrying. The last
error is kept so you can see what went wrong.

Because the text is sent first and the schedule advanced only after the carrier
accepts it, the rare worst case (Omniscio crashing in the split second between the
carrier accepting the text and Omniscio recording it) is a **visible duplicate**, never
a silent missed send — the right trade-off for a texting feature.

### Limits (V1)

- **Scheduling is desktop-only** (it rides the desktop New-SMS compose + reply
  bar); viewing and cancelling pending texts works on mobile too.
- **No editing** a queued text — cancel it and create a new one.
- **Text only** — no attachments (SMS itself is text-only).
- **No API/CLI route** — scheduling is done in the app, not via the CLI control
  server.

## Related

- [Send Later (scheduled responses)](send-later.md) — defer a reply into a Claude
  session.
- [Scheduled Messages](scheduled-messages.md) — schedule a note to your own inbox.
- [Set up SMS integration](set-up-sms-integration.md) — pair your phone via
  Pushbullet (required before any SMS feature works).