Practical way to find out if SMS has been sent

Question

I am interested in how I can figure out if SMS has been sent from the device.

In order to get notification when SMS is recieved, we use a broadcaster with:

android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED

Important to mention that I do not send SMS from my app, I just should listen when SMS is sent from the device.

May be I should listen to some Content provider (which somehow related with SMS) and react for that change. Any ideas how I can achieve that?

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 23 '13 at 22:02

16

Yes, It is possible to listen SMS ContentProvider by using ContentObserver

Here is my example for Outgoing SMS:

First register a ContetObserver with content://sms/

   public class Smssendservice extends Service{

       @Override  
       public void onCreate() {
            SmsContent content = new SmsContent(new Handler());  
            // REGISTER ContetObserver 
            this.getContentResolver().
                registerContentObserver(Uri.parse("content://sms/"), true, SMSObserver);  
       } 

       @Override
       public IBinder onBind(Intent arg0) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub

            return null;
       }

SMSObserver.class

       public class SMSObserver extends ContentObserver {
            private Handler m_handler = null;

            public SMSObserver(SMSLogger handler){
                 super(handler);
                 m_handler = handler;
            }

            @Override
            public void onChange(boolean selfChange) {
            super.onChange(bSelfChange);
            Uri uriSMSURI = Uri.parse("content://sms");

            Cursor cur = this.getContentResolver().query(uriSMSURI, null, null,
                 null, null);
            cur.moveToNext();

            String protocol = cur.getString(cur.getColumnIndex("protocol"));

            if(protocol == null) {
         //the message is sent out just now     
            }               
            else {
                 //the message is received just now   
            }
      }
  }

}

edited Jan 23 '13 at 22:02

Aexyn

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answered Mar 11 '12 at 21:25

ρяσѕρєя K

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Would this trigger if a SMS was removed as well? – tidbeck Mar 13 '12 at 10:39
@tidbeck :no,not trigger when SMS was removed from ContentProvider – ρяσѕρєя K Mar 13 '12 at 14:58
2

Inside SMSObserver.class there is is `Cursor cur = this.getContentResolver().....`. To what related `getContentResolver()` ? Because eclipse show this one as error. – Jviaches Mar 13 '12 at 18:01
@Jviaches: please see my updated edit.i have implement full code in a service. – ρяσѕρєя K Mar 13 '12 at 18:18
While this is working perfectly, may I ask if the user sends a multi-part message, will it be counted as 1 or is there any way to check this scenario? – midhunhk Feb 21 '14 at 04:45
@ρяσѕρєяK can u tell me i dont need to use service i just want when user come inside my app i will show simply count of sent messages to the user ? how will i do ? – Erum Feb 11 '15 at 06:24
@ρяσѕρєяK How do you position the cursor on the last sent/reveived message? I see `cur.moveToNext()`, but can it be just any message? – 18446744073709551615 Mar 02 '15 at 12:27
@18446744073709551615, `getContentResolver().query` returns a cursor that points to the last entry in the URI – midhunhk Jul 28 '15 at 11:54
@midhunhk yeah, it is just on some phones that you need to specify the default order explicitly and null does not work. – 18446744073709551615 Jul 28 '15 at 12:46
@18446744073709551615, ok. I am not aware of that. Can yopu give some examples of such devices? – midhunhk Jul 28 '15 at 17:23
1

midhunhk IIRC something from LG. I cannot be more specific now, months have passed since then. But I could find the lines of code like: `cur = context.getContentResolver().query(uri, cursorProjection, null, null, CallLog.Calls.DEFAULT_SORT_ORDER);` I remember that one `DEFAULT_SORT_ORDER` has fixed a bug, and was copied to other `query()` calls just in case. – 18446744073709551615 Jul 29 '15 at 10:55
@ρяσѕρєяK Thanks for help. But in my case, protocol is never `null` (it is "0" in either cases). Is there any preference for using `Telephony.Sms.PROTOCOL` over using `Telephony.Sms.TYPE` and checking if it is `MESSAGE_TYPE_INBOX` or not? – Ali Lotfi Oct 20 '15 at 12:55
3

On Android API 16 I've tested this piece of code, and the observer is not notified of a change on content://sms, then the code is not called at all. I checked the logcat console, and it write that the content://sms and content://sms/queued are really updated when I send a SMS.. any idea ? – Alex Aug 02 '16 at 16:51
1

what is SmsContent? shouldn't it be SMSObserver (the class defined right after) instead? – Yoav Feuerstein Jun 19 '18 at 13:36

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 09 '12 at 01:05

One thing that comes to mind is using the logcat log. Every time a SMS is sent/received there is a specific entry. Just hook up your phone in debug and test and you will observe the specific entry.

I should mention this method is done from your app, so you can work it into your code.

Take a pull of this. There may be other methods but that seems fairly easy and do-able.

Practical way to find out if SMS has been sent

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