For the life of me, I don't know why Apple hasn't built out-of-office functionality into it's Messages app, but it hasn't. Consequently, I want to create this functionality with Keyboard Maestro, AppleScript, or some combination of the two.
I want to run the macro whenever I receive a new text message. Here's the logic:
If
The current day is Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, or Fri AND
The current time is between 5:00 pm CT and 9:00 am CT AND
The sender is not on my Contacts "VIPs" list
Then
Send the message
Else
Don't send the message
End If
I too wish they'd let you create auto text replies in "Focus" modes!
But if you dont' use the "Driving" focus mode for its intended purpose, it has an auto text reply feature that you can customize the text and recipients that might be able to do what you want.
I probably should have mentioned that I tried that. However, when you try to do anything on your iPhone, it stops the driving mode. Also, I found it didn't reliably fre.
Unfortunately, there aren't any triggers based on incoming messages, so you'd have to have a periodic trigger ... which would then run an AppleScript, I assume, to check for new messages and reply to them.
Doing any of that, though, is way beyond my AppleScript skill level.