AI iMessage Auto-Reply for Small Business on Mac

Keep simple client texts from becoming a backlog

Independent professionals often run real work through iMessage: confirming a showing, acknowledging a draft, moving an appointment, or telling a client when an update is coming. These messages are easy to answer, but they arrive while your attention belongs somewhere else.

GhostReply watches eligible one-to-one chats while it is running on your Mac. It reads local conversation history, combines the new message with relevant context, and asks Groq to generate a short response. The answer is sent through Messages, so the client receives an actual reply rather than a draft waiting for you to approve it.

That automatic send is useful only when the cost of an imperfect reply is low. Use GhostReply for routine acknowledgments and low-stakes coordination. Keep it off for quotes, binding commitments, confidential details, regulated records, payment instructions, disputes, or anything that should be reviewed by a person.

Choose a scope that fits the workday

Use One person when a single client needs coverage during a meeting or work block. This keeps every other conversation manual. Use Everyone only when you are comfortable with automatic replies across incoming one-to-one chats. Group chats are never included.

Choose Autopilot to follow your existing conversational style or Busy for very short acknowledgments and deferrals. Pick a reply speed, then leave GhostReply running in Terminal. It auto-sends only while the Mac is awake and the process is running. It does not start from your calendar. For a focused away workflow, see the iMessage out-of-office guide.

What the Mac needs

• An awake, internet-connected Mac with the Messages app signed in to iMessage.
• Full Disk Access for the terminal app that runs GhostReply, allowing it to read the local Messages database.
• macOS Automation permission for the terminal app to control Messages and send. Contacts permission helps map handles to names.
• A Groq account and API key for the model request. Relevant context goes directly from your Mac to Groq.

GhostReply reads iMessage history locally and saves its profile, settings, and statistics under ~/.ghostreply. Message content does not pass through GhostReply's servers. License validation, trial accounting, and analytics data can reach GhostReply services. Groq handles the inference request under its own policies, which you can review in Groq's data documentation. The GhostReply privacy page explains the full product flow.

Take control without shutting down every chat

In one-person mode, sending a manual message after GhostReply has replied tells the app that you have taken over, so the session stops. In all-contacts mode, manually replying after GhostReply has answered that contact pauses the contact for 30 minutes while other eligible chats can continue. You can close GhostReply to stop everything.

Urgent and sensitive checks use keyword heuristics. Urgent matches are skipped and surfaced in a notification. Sensitive matches can receive a generic holding reply and a notification. These rules can miss context and make mistakes. They are not a substitute for monitoring, professional review, consent, recordkeeping, or an emergency channel.

What GhostReply is not

GhostReply has no shared team inbox, assignment system, approval workflow, CRM sync, customer database, audit export, service-level agreement, or industry compliance certification. It is a lightweight personal Mac tool. If several employees need to manage the same number, if every response needs review, or if you must retain formal customer records, choose software designed for that operational and legal requirement.