Does anyone know if there's a free way to do the following on Gmail:
Send a text message (SMS) to a specific mobile number whenever a new email arrives. I'm not bothered if the SMS doesn't contain any part of the email, would just like a notification that an email has arrived so the laptop can be booted to check.
This is for my parents who have a very low-traffic account, usually go days without even looking at their laptop and don't have a smartphone, tablet or any other instant-on device (so checking is a bit of a chore).
Best Answer
Your use case seems to be ideal for If This Then That (IFTTT).
So you could set up an IFTTT trigger which will send an SMS every time there's a new email. To make it easier for you, there's existing recipe. The recipe will send you an SMS containing the message:
Just signup for IFTTT, head over to this recipe and click on Use This Recipe.