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The Shortcuts app for iOS was introduced all the way back in 2018, and in the years since, more and more shortcuts have become available—both added by Apple and shortcuts shared by users. Shortcuts, if you’ve never used an app, essentially let you put together mini apps that connect a trigger (like the time of day or a button push) to an action (like opening an app or turning off WiFi). With the huge number of triggers and actions available, there are a lot of possible possibilities here.
The best way to explain how shortcuts work is to give a few examples of what they can do and how these little connectivity tools can help you do more with your iPhone. Here are 10 picks that show the power of shortcuts.
Expand the capabilities of your action button
If you have an iPhone with an action button, you probably know you can Customize what it does by Action button Access to iOS settings. With the Shortcuts app, however, you can further expand the action button’s capabilities and even set up multiple different combinations using other keys.
Add Multi-shortcut action button On Shortcuts, then assign it to an action button. When that’s done, press and hold the Action button, and tap the Volume Up key once, twice, or three times—each combination creates a new shortcut.
Dive into the multi-shortcut action button configuration page (via the three dots on its entry in the shortcuts gallery), and you can match volume key presses to other shortcuts – playing podcasts, sending messages, or whatever you want. You now have much more functionality from your iPhone’s action buttons.
Use News Report AI to get your news in a note
with News Report AI Added to Apple Shortcuts, you’ve got a simple and clean way to get the news of the day without venturing into the wilds of the web. Essentially, it turns the RSS feed(s) of your choice into separate entries in Apple Notes.
You’ll need to configure the RSS feed addresses a bit here, via the three dots on the shortcut in the gallery (you can copy the shortcut if you need more), but then when you run it you get the latest news stories (and short AI summaries) right in Notes.
Save X video clips with this shortcut
There may come a time when you’re browsing X’s extensive social media platform, and you want to save a video you’ve found. It’s not particularly easy in the X app or the X mobile site, but it’s easy with that Download X Videos shortcut
Once you’ve added them to Shortcuts, the easiest way to use Download X Videos is to pin them to the iOS share sheet (just choose Edit actions next time it appears). You can then tap the Share button in the X app to search for downloaded X videos and save the clips.
MusicBot offers numerous features, including easy access to mixes.
Credit: Lifehacker
Expand your song repertoire with MusicBot
Some of the best shortcuts you can create are related to Apple Music, and Musicbot A beautiful example. It offers multiple features, from surfacing recently added music to your library to controlling playback on AirPlay 2 devices, whenever you activate the shortcut.
For example, you can quickly add songs to playlists to rediscover forgotten tunes or listen to your year’s top hits, clear your queue with tapes, and create smart mixes to dig into your most favorite albums.
All of this requires some configuration, so that MusicBot knows the playlists you want to use, but it doesn’t take long: you’ll be asked a few questions when you first set up a shortcut, and can then edit it by tapping the three dots on the shortcut in the gallery.
Save Current Location will log where you are
There are all kinds of reasons why you might want to save your current location: you want to remember where you parked the car, or where the best fishing spots are, or how far you walked on a particular day, and Save current location The shortcut has you covered here.
Run the shortcut, and your current position on the planet is logged in Apple Note or copied to the clipboard, depending on how you set it up. It’s simple and fast and can be combined with automatic triggers (like time of day) to make it even more useful.
Low battery notification will save you from dead phone
Out of the box, your iPhone has settings to warn you about low battery and save as much battery life as possible, but Low battery notification Levels out what’s possible, and gives you alerts that can be customized more precisely.
Specifically, it calls on ChatGPT to let you customize both the battery warning message and the sound it reads to tell you what’s going on with your battery.
Combine this with battery level triggers from Automation Tab into Shortcuts, and you’re able to tell your iPhone anything you want when your battery level reaches a point you like—you can set up all the alerts you need about recharging.
What do you think so far?
Shazam and Save listen to what’s going on
This isn’t a shortcut you need to download from the web: you’ll find it here Gallery Tab of the Shortcuts application. Once you’ve added it, your iPhone will listen to what’s playing and add the song to your Apple Music library every time you launch it.
This is a good example of how shortcuts can expand on what iOS already offers—in this case, Shazam-powered music recognition capabilities. Adding a song to your library means you won’t forget about it.
Personalize your post-morning-alarm routine
One of the automation options is to turn off the alarm.
Credit: Lifehacker
As well as adding pre-built shortcuts, you can create your own. tap on + (Plus) button library Tab to create shortcuts (what you want to do), and + (Plus) button Automation tab if you want to run a shortcut automatically based on a specific trigger. Shortcuts can always be executed manually as well.
Here’s an idea: Instead of dismissing your morning alarm and that’s the end of it, why not have your favorite morning playlist and directions to the office pop up automatically (so you can see how bad the traffic is)?
When you create your shortcut, combine Music > Play Music And Maps > Get Travel Time Actions, filling the specifications as asked. Then you can associate the shortcut Alarm > is off Automation
Get battery alert when leaving home
You can set up a shortcut to alert you that your iPhone’s battery level is low when you leave the house—giving you the chance to take the charger with you and avoid having a dead phone on your hands for a few hours.
There are a few ways to do this: For your main shortcut, by combining Get battery status And Show warning Actions are probably the simplest option (using the battery status variable as the alert content).
That shortcut can be connected later Quit > Home Option on Automation tab, and further customize as needed: you can set it to only run during certain times of the day, for example.
Perform specific actions in your car
One of the other options you will see on this Automation There is a tab Carplay: It means that you can execute certain actions whenever you are in your vehicle and your iPhone is connected to the CarPlay dashboard.
Again, there are many possibilities. An idea has to be used Podcasts > Play Podcasts And Weather > Get the weather forecast Actions here, so you cover your audio listening and know the weather conditions to expect on your drive.
