iMessage.

How it works

A bridge runs on your Mac. It reads the new messages in the Messages app. Each message from a phone number or e-mail address that you allow goes to Cuiar as a task. The bridge sends the answers back into the same chat with Messages.

Apple does not have to approve the bridge, because it uses your Mac and your Apple Account. macOS asks you for two permissions one time: Full Disk Access, to read Messages, and Automation, to send with Messages.

What you need

• A Mac where Messages is signed in to an Apple Account that is not the one on your phone. Your texts to your own Apple Account are your own messages, and the bridge does not read your own messages. Make a second Apple Account for the agent, and sign in to Messages with it on a spare Mac or in a second user account on your Mac.
• The Mac must be on and awake, with the user signed in.
• The Cuiar CLI on that Mac, signed in to your Cuiar account.
• The Cuiar app open on a computer. The app does the tasks.

Set it up

Do these steps on the Mac, in the macOS user account that has the agent's Messages.

1. Install the CLI and sign in:

curl -fsSL https://cuiar.com/install.sh | sh
cuiar login

2. Link the Mac, and allow your phone number. Write the number with + and the country code. You can also allow the e-mail address of your Apple Account.

cuiar imessage link --allow +15551234567    # your phone number, with + and the country code

3. Give Full Disk Access to the cuiar program. Open System Settings,Privacy & Security, Full Disk Access. Select +, pressCommand-Shift-G, and enter the path of the program:

command -v cuiar    # the program that needs Full Disk Access

4. Start the bridge. It starts again at each login. When macOS asks if cuiar may controlMessages, select Allow. Then check that all works:

cuiar imessage install
cuiar imessage check

5. From your phone, send a task to the agent's Apple Account.

Use it

• Send a task, for example "Find a hotel in Porto near the river for two nights". The bridge answers Started with a link to the task.
• While the task runs, your messages in the chat go to it.
• When the agent asks a question, reply with the answer. When it asks before it acts, reply yes or no.
• Send stop to cancel the task. Send help for a short note.
• After a task ends, reply to its result (touch and hold the message, then Reply) to continue it. Any other message starts a new task.

An answer has at most 1,500 characters, in up to 4 messages. A longer result ends with a link to the full text. The bridge sends at most 1 message a second and 200 an hour. Cuiar takes 60 messages an hour from one Mac.

A message that comes more than 1 hour after you sent it, for example because the Mac was asleep, does not start a task. The bridge tells you to send it again.

Allowed senders

Only messages from the numbers and addresses that you allow give tasks. The bridge does not answer other people, and it does not read group chats, reactions or its own messages.

cuiar imessage allow you@icloud.com +447700900123
cuiar imessage disallow +447700900123

A number without its country code is not accepted, because it can be the number of another person in a different country. The bridge reads the list again before each pass, so a change works at once.

Privacy

The bridge reads the Messages database on your Mac and never changes it. It sends Cuiar only the text of each message from an allowed sender, the message ID and a random key for the chat. Phone numbers, e-mail addresses and all other chats stay on your Mac.

The tasks stay as long as other tasks. An answer waits for the bridge for at most 7 days. Cuiar keeps the IDs of the messages for 30 days, so that a message does not start two tasks. See the privacy policy.

Stop it

cuiar imessage uninstall    # stop the bridge on this Mac
cuiar imessage unlink       # also remove this Mac's channel and settings

You can also remove the channel on your account page or withcuiar channels remove <id>. Then the bridge stops giving tasks at once.

Problems

Run cuiar imessage check. It shows what works and what to do. The bridge writes its log to~/Library/Logs/cuiar-imessage.log. The log has no message text and no phone numbers.

• Full Disk Access: no. Give it to the path that command -v cuiar shows, then runcuiar imessage install again. After cuiar update, macOS can ask for it again.
• Automation: no. Open System Settings, Privacy & Security,Automation, and turn on Messages under cuiar.
• No answer. Make sure that you text the agent's Apple Account from an allowed number, that the Mac is awake, and that the Cuiar app is open on a computer.

RCS

Cuiar does not offer RCS. A business that sends RCS messages must register an agent with Google, and each mobile carrier must approve it. Android and iOS do not let other apps read or send RCS messages in the background, so a bridge on your phone is not possible.

From an Android phone, use Telegram, Slack or e-mail.