These days I receive at least as many text messages on my Nokia mobile device as I do regular phone calls, if not more. And while most of the time it is easy enough to reply to text messages almost as quickly as they arrive – and the nature of text messaging tends to support that type of behavior – there are some occasions where you either just can’t reply on the spot (you’re in an important meeting), or you shouldn’t reply right away (you’re driving somewhere, and don’t need to be distracted from the road), or you just don’t want to reply then and there (maybe you’re out for the evening with friends). Happily, there’s a very useful – and free – app in Ovi Store called SmsAutoReply that can handle the situation for you.

What do I mean? Using SmsAutoReply, you can – like the name of the app implies – set up automatic replies to incoming text (SMS) messages that do not require any additional involvement from you. Well, there is the initial configuration of the app, but after that, the app does all the work in the background on your Nokia S60 device.

If you receive a text message, and the app is running on your phone, SmsAutoReply will send a predefined message right back to the person that was trying to contact you. The best part is, you don’t have to stop what you’re doing – so you can stay focused on the meeting, or the road ahead, or your friends – and know that person who sent you a text message will receive an immediate response from you, letting him or her know that you are busy and that you will reply later.

As you can see from the screenshot above, you can customize one of three different auto-reply messages, and then select the one you want to use with the app at any given time. You can also set the app to turn off automatically after a given amount of time, so if the meeting lasts for an hour, you can set it for 60 minutes, and know that you won’t be distracted for the duration of the meeting. The app comes with the text for the three different messages preconfigured, but you can edit and change any of them to suit your personal style and needs.

The app does add a little self-promotional “powered by” message to the end of each auto-reply it sends, but that seems like a reasonable thing for the developer to do, given that the app itself is free.

Another cool feature of the app is the addition of a “Block List” that you can customize as needed. So, if you want to prevent imcoming text messages from a specific number – or say a prefix (like toll-free numbers used to send marketing messages) – you can add those numbers to a block list, and prevent those texts from ever reaching your inbox. That’s a nice little bonus.

This Animoto demo shows the app in action:

Again, SmsAutoReply is available for Nokia S60 devices – I have been using it quite happily on my Nokia N97 – and it is free to download from Ovi Store.

For more information, please visit the SmsAutoReply website.