Get a Text When Your Website Goes Down

upcheck checks your website every few minutes and texts you only when something changes: once when it goes down, and once when it's back up. The rest of the time it stays quiet. It's a small free script for Windows, Mac and Linux, and takes about 5 minutes to set up.

What the texts look like

DOWN: https://example.com (no response) at 14:05 Oct 11
Back UP: https://example.com (HTTP 200) at 14:20 Oct 11

"Up" means the page answers with a normal web response (HTTP 2xx or 3xx) within 15 seconds. Anything else, such as an error page or no answer at all, counts as down.

1. Get your API key

It's on your account screen. No account yet? Start a free trial, then add your mobile number on the account screen so alerts come by text.

Easiest: run uxsend once. It asks for the key and saves it, and upcheck then finds it automatically. Or set it yourself in USERALERTX_API_KEY.

2. Download and try it

Windows: upcheck.ps1, saved to C:\UserAlertX\. In PowerShell:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\UserAlertX\upcheck.ps1 https://example.com

Mac / Linux: upcheck.sh, then:

chmod +x upcheck.sh
./upcheck.sh https://example.com

It prints the site's state, for example "https://example.com is up (HTTP 200)". The first run sends nothing if the site is up.

Test without sending: set USERALERTX_DRYRUN=1 (Mac/Linux) or $env:USERALERTX_DRYRUN="1" (PowerShell), and it shows the text it would send instead.

3. Run it every 5 minutes

Windows (one command in a Command Prompt; change the path and site):

schtasks /create /sc minute /mo 5 /tn "UserAlertX upcheck" /tr "powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\UserAlertX\upcheck.ps1 https://example.com"

Mac / Linux: run crontab -e and add:

*/5 * * * * /home/you/upcheck.sh https://example.com

Watching more than one site? Add one line (or one scheduled task) per site. Each site's last state is remembered separately.

Good to know

  • Cost: nothing while the site is fine. Each text is a normal UserAlertX alert, 1 token (a plan includes 50 tokens a month), and an outage costs 2: one "down" and one "back up".
  • Run it somewhere else. If upcheck runs on the same machine as the website and that machine goes down, nothing can send the text. Run it on a different computer, at home or in the office.
  • How it remembers: the last state of each site is kept in ~/.useralertx_upcheck/ (Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.useralertx_upcheck), so it only texts on a change.
  • Pause alerts during planned maintenance: reply P to any alert text. Alerts are held, not lost, and START sends them.
  • The scripts are short and commented, so they're also good starting code for your own checks.
Examples Home UserToolX