SMS Auto Reply - Autoresponder

Review by eFreeware

If there is one group of Android users who will get the most from SMS Auto Reply, it is people whose phones keep pinging at times when answering is awkward: while driving, sitting in a meeting, in class, watching something, asleep, or simply not willing to be interrupted. The app is built to answer on your behalf, sending an automatic text back to whoever wrote, and it extends that idea beyond plain SMS to the notification replies of a long list of chat apps. It is a paid download rather than a free one, which shapes who will want it: someone who expects a messaging tool to earn its keep from the first week.

The core promise is straightforward. You decide the conditions under which the phone should respond by itself, and the app takes care of the reply, so the person on the other end gets an answer instead of silence. For anyone who has ever left a message unanswered for hours because a meeting ran long, that is the appeal.

It has been on Google Play since December 2014 and sits at a 3.1 average from 535 ratings, with more than 10,000 installs. Those numbers suggest a tool with a settled audience rather than a breakout hit, and I would read the middling score as a sign that the app asks a fair amount of the person setting it up.

Answering texts and chat notifications on your terms

The feature the developer leads with is the autoresponder itself. Incoming texts and messages trigger a reply you have written in advance, and the app supports several of these at once, so a reply for driving can sit alongside one for sleeping and another for class. You can switch on the ready-made automations the app ships with or write your own wording, and a manual status lets you set a default reply and flip the whole thing on or off by hand when you would rather not wait for a schedule.

Alongside plain SMS, the app answers messages arriving through a wide spread of chat services, including WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Signal, LinkedIn, Viber, Skype, Google Chat, Discord, Line and Kakao Talk, with the developer putting the total at more than fifteen messengers. The practical condition is stated plainly: it works with messengers that offer a reply option inside their text notifications. That is the mechanism doing the work, and it explains why the reach is broad.

Group chats are covered too, with auto replies listed for WhatsApp groups, WhatsApp Business groups and Facebook groups. The app can also send its automatic replies using the WhatsApp emoji set, which matters if you like your away messages to look like something you would actually type.

Rules, lists and the details that keep replies sane

What lifts this above a simple away message is the rule engine. Replies can be triggered by the date, the day of the week, the time of day, a Bluetooth connection or an incoming text, and rules can be tied to a contact name. A recurring reply can be set for a particular day and time and repeated weekly, which covers the regular commitments in a week without any daily fiddling. There is an alarm for the end of a status as well, which is a thoughtful touch for a sleeping reply: you set it and the phone tells you when the quiet period is over.

The lists give you control over who hears from the autoresponder. A personalized list holds the people who should receive a specific message, and you can restrict automatic replies to that list alone. A separate don't-reply list covers the people you would rather not answer, whether you identify them by mobile number or by contact name, which doubles as a way to block texts from a given sender. There is also an option to reply only to messages from numbers that are not in your contacts, useful when the point is to acknowledge strangers rather than friends.

Two smaller features round out the day-to-day behavior. During auto-reply mode the ringer can be set to silent, giving you a do-not-disturb stretch without a second app, and the app can be told to send just one response per contact while a mode is active, so nobody gets the same message five times in an hour. Sent replies are kept in an archive, so you can look back and see what went out in your name.

Reading messages aloud, and the driving modes

Text to speech is the other half of the pitch. The app can read incoming messages aloud as they arrive, including the sender's name and the content, and it can do this for messages from WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook, Telegram and others. Reading speed is adjustable, and you can have messages read out without any automatic reply being sent, which suits anyone who wants to stay informed but would rather answer personally.

Two further modes cover driving and cycling. The app can start and close automatically when your phone pairs with the car over Bluetooth, so the autoresponder is live the moment you set off rather than whenever you remember to switch it on. It can also launch when you begin driving. The developer frames the whole package as a way to listen and reply without touching the phone, and while no app removes the need for care behind the wheel, the Bluetooth trigger is the part that makes the idea workable in practice.

What it costs and what it asks of you

This is a paid app at $7.49. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, so the price you see is the whole arrangement. A free version exists, so trying that first is the obvious way to decide whether the paid one is worth it to you.

The requirements are worth weighing before you buy. The app answers messages through the reply option in notifications, so a service that does not offer one in its notifications is outside its reach, however long the supported list looks. Setting up multiple replies, personalized lists and scheduled rules takes some patience, and the 3.1 average suggests that patience is not universal. The Bluetooth triggers assume your car or headset pairs with the phone, and the read-aloud features lean on the phone's text-to-speech service. None of these is unreasonable, but together they mean the app rewards a careful first setup rather than a quick install.

Getting the setup right the first time

My advice would be to start with one mode and one message. Pick the situation that actually costs you something, whether that is the drive to work or the hour when you are putting a child to bed, write a short reply that sounds like you, and set the rule that covers it. Once that behaves the way you expect, add the next one. Building a dozen automations on the first evening is how people end up with the wrong message going to the wrong person.

The lists deserve the same care. Decide early whether the autoresponder should answer everyone or only the people on your personalized list, and use the don't-reply list for anyone who should never get an automatic response. If you take calls from work numbers you do not have saved, the non-contacts option is the one to look at. And if you use the sleeping reply, set the end-of-status alarm so the phone comes back to normal on its own.

For the driving modes, the Bluetooth pairing is the piece to check first, because the automatic launch depends on it. Turn the read-aloud on and adjust the speed until the voice is comfortable at highway pace, and consider using the readout without automatic replies if you would rather answer yourself once you have parked. The archive is there if you ever want to confirm what went out while you were away.

A scheduled autoresponder for people who plan ahead

SMS Auto Reply is a focused tool, and it does not pretend otherwise. It answers messages when you cannot or will not, across SMS and a long list of chat apps, with rules that run on a schedule or a Bluetooth connection and lists that decide who is covered. The text-to-speech side and the driving modes are the parts that make it more than a timer for canned replies. The recent update added French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Czech, German, Portuguese, Danish, Hungarian, Dutch, Romanian and Swedish to the app's language support, which widens who can use it comfortably.

At $7.49 with no ads and no in-app purchases, the question is not whether the app is expensive but whether you will set it up properly. I would suggest trying the free version first if you are unsure, and only paying once you know the reply-in-notification mechanism covers the apps you actually use.

It suits people with predictable periods when they cannot answer: drivers who pair their phone with the car, anyone in meetings or classes, parents settling children, shift workers who sleep at odd hours. It also suits anyone who wants incoming messages read aloud rather than glanced at. If your messaging is mostly in apps whose notifications do not offer a reply, or you want something that works with no setup at all, this is not the tool for the job.

What's new in version 8.8.7

Optimized the app to meet Google Play’s latest quality requirements. Fixed known issues. Added support for the following languages: French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Czech, German, Portuguese, Danish, Hungarian, Dutch, Romanian, Swedish