How to Auto-Reply to iMessages on a Mac

The short answer

If you only need help wording a response, use Apple Intelligence Smart Reply. It is built into Messages on compatible Apple silicon Macs. Select a conversation, click the text field, choose a suggested response, edit it if needed, and press Return. This is assisted replying, not an unattended auto-reply.

If you need a fixed notice only while driving, Apple's Driving Focus is the simplest native auto-reply. It runs from an iPhone, lets you choose Recents, Favorites, or All Contacts, and sends the same customized message. It is useful for "I am driving" but is not a general Mac AI responder.

If you want the Mac to watch incoming one-to-one messages, write a contextual answer, and send it without a click, use a dedicated app. That route needs more setup and more caution because generated text can be wrong.

Method 1: use Apple Smart Reply

1. Confirm that Apple Intelligence is available and turned on. Apple currently requires an Apple silicon Mac, macOS Sequoia 15.1 or later, enough device storage, and matching supported device and Siri languages.
2. Open Messages and select a conversation.
3. Click the message field and choose a suggested reply.
4. Review or refine the draft, then press Return to send it.

This workflow gives you a human checkpoint. Apple also lets you use Writing Tools to refine wording and tone. Its main limit for this query is clear: the official instructions still end with you pressing Return. Read Apple's current Smart Reply instructions and Apple Intelligence requirements.

Method 2: use Driving Focus for a fixed reply

On iPhone, open Settings, choose Focus, then Driving, and configure Auto-Reply. Choose who receives the notice and edit the text. When Driving Focus is active, allowed recipients get that fixed response. They can send "urgent" to break through.

This is a straightforward built-in automatic reply for ordinary contacts, but it is intentionally narrow. It is tied to Driving Focus, does not write a different answer for each message, and is configured on iPhone rather than as a general Mac automation. Apple's Driving Focus guide documents the current behavior.

Method 3: set up automatic AI replies on Mac

GhostReply is the focused option when you want actual automatic sending. Install it from Terminal, provide your Groq API key, grant the requested Full Disk Access and Messages Automation permissions, and choose whether it should listen to one person or everyone. It reads recent iMessage history on the Mac to build a local reply profile for each conversation.

1. Paste curl -sL ghostreply.lol/install.sh | bash into Terminal.
2. Choose the 10-reply free trial and add your Groq key.
3. Select one contact or everyone, then choose the reply mode and speed.
4. Leave GhostReply and Messages running. Close the app or take over manually when you want it off.

Message history and the learned profile stay local. Relevant context goes directly from your Mac to Groq for inference with your key, and message content does not pass through GhostReply's servers. This is cloud inference, so it should not be described as fully local.

Know the automatic-reply limits

GhostReply handles one-to-one conversations and skips groups. It uses keyword heuristics to skip some urgent messages, sends a holding response for some sensitive phrases, rejects obvious AI preambles, and steps aside when it detects that you replied yourself. These are useful controls, not a guarantee of a correct or safe answer.

Keep automatic sending to low-risk conversations. Do not use it for emergencies, legal advice, medical decisions, financial commitments, consent, conflict, or anything where the exact wording matters. The Mac and app must stay awake and running, and network or provider failures can stop a reply. For a broader choice, see the Mac iMessage app comparison or compare GhostReply and Gabby.

For narrower setups, see auto-reply for one person, an iMessage out-of-office reply, the Shortcuts approach, and the full AI auto-reply safety guide.