Issue: You want iChat to automatically accept any incoming video chat invitation. This can be useful for keeping an eye on things at home when you are away (what are my cats doing right now?) or to help out less technologically savvy people (e.g., grandma). In AIM, this is a standard preferences settings, but in iChat it does not show up in the Preferences menu.

Solution: This does exist as an iChat preferences setting, but it is a hidden preference. Issue the following command in a Terminal or xterm (X11) window:


Repeat with 1 replaced by 0 to turn it off. The file modified by defaults in this case is ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.

Note that this does not cause iChat to start or login automatically – in order to automatically accept incoming video invitations, iChat must already be running with a user account logged in (and the incoming user must not be blocked from initiating a video call). So don't forget to leave iChat logged in for the cats...

OS Version Compatibility: Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Tiger

Update Status: 02 February 2010