Group Messaging on macOS? Autofill Who You're Replying To
In 2020 so many people are remote and isolated and one thing is for certain, tech usage is way up. Anyone who uses the Messages App on their Mac I’m sure has had a few group threads happen during these last few months between family, friends, and loved ones. I came across a quite fascinating feature that I wanted to share with everyone.
This only works on macOS. I’ve tested it on iOS 13, iPadOS 13, and iOS 14 beta. None of the mobile operating systems seems to have incorporated this feature at the time of writing this article. But lo and behold on macOS Catalina 10.15.6 to the rescue. In the Messages App go to a group thread, select the text field to start to reply and tap the “Escape” key. What this will do is automatically present a dropdown of the first names of all of your friends or colleagues you are chatting with. Quite convenient right?! I feel this is built as a framework to continue to build on iMessage with specific replies of a user. Nevertheless this can still be incredibly useful now to have the App autofill who you are chatting with. To go one step further, this shortcut works in the middle of a sentence as well. Instead of starting your message autofilling your recipient's name, you can tap the Escape key anywhere in your reply to have the dropdown box presented to you.
This feature continues to build on the power of automation. It will enhance your workflow with a task that we do from our Macs on a daily basis. I’m excited to use this feature as a productivity tool, and I look forward to hearing everyone on this. Did you know the escape key in macOS Messages was there to autofill?
Be healthy. Be well.
-Joe
