How to Customize Default Replies on Apple Watch

With watchOS 2, Apple added some features to the Mail app that make it possible for you to actually respond to email right from Apple Watch. Similar to responding to text messages on Apple Watch, users can now use voice dictation, send an emoji, or respond with a preset default reply.

Additionally, Facebook recently updated its Messenger app to work on Apple Watch. So, now you can read and reply to chats with Facebook contacts.

Apple provides room for about 20 default replies for Messages and about a dozen for Mail. Facebook provides six. You are not confined to the premade responses, however, and you can customize them to say whatever you’d like.

We’ve got a quick tutorial explaining how to customize your quick responses to fit your personality. The steps are very similar for customizing default responses in all three apps.

Messages

On iPhone, open the Apple Watch app and navigate to the My Watch tab.

Select Messages from the menu.

Tap “Default Replies.”

Tap a premade response and replace it with your own.

Mail

On iPhone, open the Apple Watch app and navigate to the My Watch tab.

Select Mail from the menu.

Tap “Default Replies” under the Mail Settings section.

Tap a premade response and replace it with your own.

Facebook Messenger

On iPhone, open the Messenger app and tap the Settings icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Select Apple Watch from the menu.

Tap a premade response and replace it with your own.

From personal experience with Apple Watch, we recommend you try to make your responses as personal as possible. A dry response from a normally animated person may cause the recipient to question whether you are upset. Include exclamation points and emoticons if that is how you normally text friends. Be sure to save a few lines for more serious responses.

With Mail, crafting a good response is a little harder. Luckily, you can write a lot in a default email reply. We counted to 400 characters before giving up, and hopefully you won’t need to be sending premade replies longer than that from your Apple Watch.

When crafting a default email reply, remember that the recipient will question why you can’t respond further if you are capable of responding at all. It might be a good idea to include that you are sending the message from Apple Watch so that the recipient understands why you didn’t address the email specifically.

It is likely we will see support for customizable default replies for other chat-related activities as developers update their apps for watchOS 2, so feel free to share any discoveries in our discussion thread.