10.6: Enable AutoAnswer in FaceTime for the Mac

Feb 25, '11 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: corndoggyrob

Snow Leopard only hintMy previous solution to auto answering FaceTime calls involved AppleScript, which required 'Access to assistive devices' to be enabled. I thought this method , while it worked, was too cumbersome, so I began to dig into FaceTime to find a way around the whole AppleScript approach. I fired up the Terminal to start hacking away at FaceTime.

I ran the command:

strings /Applications/FaceTime.app/Contents/MacOS/FaceTime

and, to my surprise I found two little preference strings of text called AutoAcceptInvites and AutoAcceptInvitesFrom.

It turns out that Apple has included the ability to auto answer FaceTime calls, and not only that, but AutoAnswer calls only from callers you specify. I wish I would have checked for these strings a month ago.

Open up the Terminal.app located in your /Applications/Utilities folder.

Type in the following command to allow a specified caller for auto accept incoming calls (substituting the appropriate value for indentifier):

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add <identifier>
A phone number example:
defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add +15205551212
An Apple ID (email) example:
defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add stevejobs@apple.com
To remove all people from the auto accept:
defaults delete com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one.]

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