Android N is turning out to be an impressive update. While the new Android iteration brings various features and changes, we particularly like the quick reply feature. We can easily reply to messages, update task lists and do more with the feature and it comes with messaging apps. In this way, it’s nothing unexpected that people need new feature on their Android devices.

While you have the choice of waiting for the Android N update, we wouldn’t mention it because we know the wait for Android updates can get long. You don’t need to wait, as there’s a cool new app that brings the Android N quick reply feature to any Android device.

Here we discuss about how to get the Android N quick reply feature on any Android device running Marshmallow or Lollipop with the quickReply app:

Install and Enable the App

First, you have to install the quickReply app on your Android device. The app is in beta and it’s available only for devices running Android 5.0 and above, so if you have an Android device running older Android versions, you are out of luck.

After you’ve installed the quickReply app, you’ll have to grant the app “notification access”. When you first start the app, it will prompt you for the permission but in case you miss out then, you can do so by going to Settings->Sounds & notification->Notification access.

Start Sending Quick Replies

Once you have enabled the app, you will automatically see buttons for inline actions on notifications from messaging apps. The notifications have buttons for “Reply”, “Direct” and “Read”. As you may have estimated, the Reply button reply to a message or email directly from the notification shade and it looks identical to Android N’s implementation. The Direct button lets you send one of the preset messages and the Read button lets you mark messages as read. Furthermore, you can use the quick reply actions from the lock screen as well.

The app even groups notifications that are available for quick replies on the lock screen and notification shade in a ChatHeads like layout, so that you can easily tap one of the icons to start a quick reply.

Note:

While the quick reply and direct message reply features work for various messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Hangouts, Threema, Skype, Line, WeChat, Kik, EvolveSms, YAATA, Textra, ChompSms, Handcent SMS along with Gmail and the stock Android messaging app, the “Mark as read” features only works with WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype, WeChat, Threema, Kik and Evolve SMS.

Customize the Quick Reply Experience

The quickReply app works fine out of the box and in fact, you can simply install the app, enable it and never even need to open it again. But, if you need to personalize the look & actions of the quick replies, the app lets you do that.

Initially, you can head over the “Basic settings” of the app and enable/disable one of the reply actions. You can also select to disable ChatHeads notification here and change its display mode. There’s also the option to filter contacts and remove original notifications from apps.

Also, you can customize the look of the quick reply box. You can enable “Autocolor”, which colorizes the reply box depending on app icon color. You can additionally go for the “Minimal layout”, which hides icons and message and only displays reply text.

There are other cool features as well but they are only available in the Pro version ($2.29) of the app. The quickReply Pro version brings features including the ability to “Wake screen on notifications”, add emoji button besides quick reply on notifications and add more direct replies. Furthermore, it brings the ability to change the style of send button, background & layout in quick replies and the size of ChatHeads notification.