Automate sending a response to an incoming text in certain cases

[SweetTasha]

I sometimes see a message similar to this: "For safety, I've activated Focus-assist, as I'm driving." I want to send a similar response when I get a text message in certain situations, including but not limited to when I am driving.

A user at forum "Android Central" recommended to try Tasker.

Thanks for your help,
SweetTasha

[Dan Muller]

This is pretty straightforward to do. You'll create a profile that is triggered by the Received Text event. 

Call a task that includes a Send SMS action block. Within that, use %SMSRF in the Number field (this is the number of the sender of the last text message that came in). Type your message in the Message field. You can use the If option within the block to set the condition (such as, connected to your car's Bluetooth), or if you have some complex condition, you might want to use an If/Else/Endif structure within the task.

[Robert Rosenwald]

I get a lot of SPAM text messages for which I Block the sender and report as SPAM. Every time I do this I get back a message from my cell phone provider, Verizon, that begins with "VZW FREE MSG: Thank you...." and I get notified as well with the message appearing as Unread. I'm sure Tasker could mute the notification sound and then return to full volume and also that it could mark the message as read, but I have no idea how to do this. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Dan Muller]

Tasker will not be able to mute the sound in time. It can only detect a message after it arrives, by which time the notification tone would already have been played. What you can do, however is to let Tasker take control of the notification tone. To do that, you must turn off the text message notification tone in the Android settings. Now you can create a profile in Tasker that detects that a message has arrived and plays the alert tone you want. Of course, you will now set up the necessary logic to skip playing the tone if the message body contains whatever content will identify the ones you want to ignore. BUT PLEASE NOTE: You will also have to include logic to not play a tone when the phone is silenced or on Do Not Disturb, etc. so don't forget to do that.

I don't think Tasker can directly mark the message as read. I can't think of a workable way of doing that indirectly.

[Robert Rosenwald]

Thank you for your response. I have been able to reduce volume on incoming texts from specific senders already, so that part Tasker handles as I wanted. I was hoping for a way to have Tasker "read" the message (though I don't want to actually hear the message). I'll try some possible round about ways to get what I want done. Can you briefly tell me what AuoNotification is meant to do?

[Dan Muller]

If you're trying to mark it as read just to get rid of the notification icon, try this instead of my previous suggestion. Disable notifications for your messaging app entirely. Now use the Tasker profile to generate a notification (using the Notify action) when you receive a "wanted" message and do nothing when you receive one you want to ignore. Again, you'll want to include logic to handle silencing the alert tone while still displaying the icon when you're on vibrate or DND mode.

This will still leave the message shown as unread when you open your SMS app, but at least you won't be alerted to open that for nothing.

[Robert Rosenwald]

Thanks Dan. I'll check it out.