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This article was published on October 10, 2017

This Android app auto-replies to WhatsApp texts when you’re busy


This Android app auto-replies to WhatsApp texts when you’re busy

Most Android phones now come with an option to automatically reply via SMS when you miss a call. Now, you can do that with WhatsApp messages, thanks to a handy new app called Can’t Talk.

It works as you’d expect: set up a custom message, choose the apps you want to use this with, and toggle auto-reply on. When someone pings you on your selected apps, it’ll automatically send out your text and let you know the task’s been taken care of with a silent notification.

It even works with group chats – which is both a blessing and a curse, since it’ll reply on your behalf with an unnecessary ‘Sorry I can’t reply just now.’ You’ll be hearing about that one from your work pals or college buddies, whoever you’re stuck in a group conversation with, for a while.

To be clear: you can specify how long the app should wait before it auto-replies to the same sender, and it’s set to 15 minutes by default. So no, it won’t reply to every single incoming message on a group chat on its own, and you can avert that issue by increasing that time interval.

Can’t Talk also promises to auto-reply in other apps like Telegram and Slack, but I couldn’t get it to work on those. As for WhatsApp, I’d certainly want more granular control over which conversations it replies to (or to be able to exclude group chats from auto-replies), and a timer to automatically disable the app – but those features aren’t available yet in this beta.

Still, it’s handy for those who use WhatsApp often enough. There’s a free two-week trial, after which you’ll have to fork over either INR 85 ($1.30) for a year’s subscription or INR 150 ($2.30) to unlock the lifetime plan. Clearly, the app needs a bit of work before it’s perfect, but at least you can auto-reply successfully without having to wait for WhatsApp to build the feature.

Give Can’t Talk a try by grabbing it from Google Play.

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