[AC Question]

i want to send a group message but have responses sent just to me, not to group

[SpookDroid]

That, unfortunately, it's not an easy task. You have two choices:
1) Send the group message as separate texts. Some apps will do this automatically. That way each recipient gets an individual message and replies come back to you only. Not exactly a group text, but it does get sent to all participants. (UPDATE: See Ry's reply below. That's what this is.)
2) Send out a group text 'normally', but ask whomever is replying to reply just to you. That requires some work on their end.

Unfortunately that's how Group messaging works. It's really a MMS (sort of like e-mail).

[Ry]

i want to send a group message but have responses sent just to me, not to group

What phone?

What app?

In Android Messages (formerly Google Messenger) go to Settings, Advanced, Group messaging, and set it to Send an SMS reply to all recipients and get individual replies (mass text).

There should be a similar setting in other SMS/MMS text messaging applications. What you'll want to do is not use MMS for group messaging.

[goanddo2]

Thank you, Ry, you are the first person in multiple forums who has explained this in a way that is understandable and actionable! Honestly, the first person in some forums who even understood the question
I was able to set up Google Messenger to send out texts where only I see the replies... only drawbacks are the replies are all in separate windows (at least they just add on to other chats I've had with each person), it only allows for 20 people at a time, I can't save the people in a group, so I'll have to search for the threads (since there are more than 20 people I have to have multiple threads), and the perhaps the worst part - it sends the text out to each person individually!! I just sent out a message to two groups and now I have 37 individual conversations at the top of my messenger list. I am dumbfounded that someone hasn't come up with a more user-friendly and efficient group text app in all these years!