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iOS 9: The MacStories Review, Created on iPad

With iOS entering the last stage of its single-digit version history, it’s time to wonder if Apple wants to plant new seeds or sit back, maintain, and reap the fruits of the work done so far.

Last year, I welcomed iOS 8 as a necessary evolution to enable basic communication between apps under the user’s control. With extensions based on a more powerful share sheet, document providers, widgets, and custom keyboards, I noted that iOS had begun to open up; slowing down wasn’t an option anymore.

In hindsight, many of the announcements from last year’s WWDC were unambiguous indicators of a different Apple, aware of its position of power in the tech industry and willing to explore new horizons for its mobile operating system and what made it possible.

Following the troubled launch of iOS 6 and subsequent rethinking of iOS 7, Apple found itself caught in the tension between a (larger) user base who appreciated iOS for its simplicity and another portion of users who had elected iPhones and iPads as their primary computers. Alongside this peculiar combination, the tech industry as a whole had seen the smartphone graduate from part of the digital hub to being the hub itself, with implications for the connected home, personal health monitoring, videogames, and other ecosystems built on top of the smartphone.

WWDC 2014 marked the beginning of a massive undertaking to expand iOS beyond app icons. With Extensibility, HealthKit, HomeKit, Metal, and Swift, Tim Cook’s Apple drew a line in the sand in June 2014, introducing a new foundation where no preconception was sacred anymore.

iOS’ newfound youth, however, came with its fair share of growing pains.

While power users could – at last – employ apps as extensions available anywhere, the system was criticized for its unreliability, poor performance, sparse adoption, and general lack of discoverability for most users. The Health app – one of the future pillars of the company’s Watch initiative – went through a chaotic launch that caused apps to be pulled from the App Store and user data to be lost. The tabula rasa of iOS 7 and the hundreds of developer APIs in iOS 8 had resulted in an unprecedented number of bugs and glitches, leading many to call out Apple’s diminished attention to software quality. And that’s not to mention the fact that new features often made for hefty upgrades, which millions of customers couldn’t perform due to storage size issues.

But change marches on, and iOS 8 was no exception. In spite of its problematic debut, iOS 8 managed to reinvent how I could work from my iPhone and iPad, allowing me – and many others – to eschew the physical limitations of desktop computers and embrace mobile, portable workflows that weren’t possible before. The past 12 months have seen Apple judiciously fix, optimize, and improve several of iOS 8’s initial missteps.

Eight years1 into iOS, Apple is facing a tall task with the ninth version of its mobile OS. After the changes of iOS 7 and iOS 8 and a year before iOS 10, what role does iOS 9 play?

In many cultures, the number “10” evokes a sense of growth and accomplishment, a complete circle that starts anew, both similar and different from what came before. In Apple’s case, the company has a sweet spot for the 10 numerology: Mac OS was reborn under the X banner, and it gained a second life once another 10 was in sight.

What happens before a dramatic change is particularly interesting to observe. With the major milestone of iOS 10 on track for next year, what does iOS 9 say about Apple’s relationship with its mobile OS today?

After two years of visual and functional changes, is iOS 9 a calm moment of introspection or a hazardous leap toward new technologies?

Can it be both?

eBook Version

An eBook version of this review is available to Club MacStories members for free as part of their subscription. A Club MacStories membership costs $5/month or $50/year and it contains some great additional perks.

You can subscribe here.

(Note: If you only care about the eBook, you can subscribe and immediately turn off auto-renewal in your member profile. I’d love for you to try out Club MacStories for at least a month, though.)

Download the EPUB files from your Club MacStories profile.

Download the EPUB files from your Club MacStories profile.

If you’re a Club MacStories member, you will find a .zip download in the Downloads section of your profile, which can be accessed at macstories.memberful.com. The .zip archive contains two EPUB files – one optimized for iBooks (with footnote popovers), the other for most EPUB readers.

If you spot a typo or any other issue in the eBook, feel free to get in touch at club@macstories.net.

Table of Contents

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Apple’s Journal App: Journaling for All?

I’ve been keeping a journal in Day One since at least 2015, and I’ve got to say, the practice has become very engrained in my otherwise chaotic daily routine. Whenever I get asked about journaling, I always say that it’s a habit that can take any form you like. It can take place in a paper journal, in an app as written entries, as voice notes, or even as captioned photos in a photo diary. The reason I stuck with Day One over the years is because the app is incredibly flexible. It kept up with me during periods of my life when it was harder to write down my daily thoughts, and easier to type a couple of bullet points every day instead. I believe the best journaling tools are those that can adapt to you, not the other way around. But still, when Apple announced they were building their own Journal app, built right into iOS 17, I was excited by the prospect of switching things up in this little habit of mine.

This week, Apple released the Journal app as part of iOS 17.2. As expected, the app is unfortunately only available on the iPhone. Nevertheless, Apple’s first entry in this category is very interesting, to say the least, as it revolves almost entirely around a system of smart journaling suggestions and prompts. I’ve been using it alongside Day One for a couple of weeks now, to both get an idea of what Apple’s approach to journaling is like, and to see how it intends to bring journaling to a wider audience.

Let’s jump in.

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iOS and iPadOS 17: The MacStories Review

In the year when the vision is elsewhere, what do you get the OS that has everything?

Well, last year was weird.

For the first time since I started writing annual reviews of Apple’s two mobile operating systems – iOS and iPadOS – I published a review without the iPad part. Or rather: I had to publish it a month later given the mess Apple found itself in with Stage Manager for iPadOS 16 and its half-baked, embarrassing debut.

I don’t want to go over the specifics of that entire saga again and how we got to a shipping version of Stage Manager for iPadOS 16 that didn’t meet my expectations. Spoiler alert: as we’ll see later in this review, Apple listened to feedback and fixed the most glaring issues of Stage Manager in iPadOS 17, striking the balance between “guided multitasking” and freeform window placement that was missing from last year’s debut. Stage Manager for iPadOS 16 will remain another blip in the iPad’s long and storied history of ill-fated multitasking features. There’s no need to talk about it again.

I want to explain, however, why the past 12 months have been different than usual in iOS and iPadOS land beyond the fact that I couldn’t work on my iPad Pro for the first half of 2023.1

Following the launch of iOS 16 with its Lock Screen widgets and after Apple wrapped up work on the last big-ticket item on the iOS 16 roadmap (Live Activities for the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, which launched in late October), it felt like the entire Apple community only started thinking about one product for the next six months: the headset. What would later be known as the Vision Pro and visionOS platform became the topic of conversation in Apple-related publications, podcasts, and YouTube channels. Leading up to WWDC 2023, anticipation surrounding the upcoming headset eclipsed anything related to other platforms.

And rightfully so. As I explained in the story that I wrote after I was able to try a Vision Pro at Apple Park, the excitement was justified. It’s always a rare occurrence for Apple to introduce a new hardware product with associated software platform; but to do so with a mind-blowing experience unlike anything I ever tried before in my life is truly something special. Apple had been working on visionOS and Vision Pro for years, and we were all thinking about it and waiting for it at WWDC. And the company delivered.

This context is necessary because the visionOS/Vision Pro development timeline explains what’s going on with iOS and iPadOS 17 this year. Both OSes are grab-bag style updates with a collection of welcome enhancements to different areas of experience. I quipped years ago that modern iOS updates need to have a little bit of everything for everyone; that has never been more true than with iOS 17, albeit for a different reason this time: most likely, because Apple didn’t have time to also deliver big, vision-altering upgrades on the iPhone this year.

iOS and iPadOS take a bit of a secondary role in 2023, happily conceding the spotlight to a new software platform that hasn’t launched yet, but which developers around the world are already testing in person.

To be clear, I am not complaining. iOS and iPadOS 17 may not have an industry-defining, obvious tentpole feature, but in their approach to offering miscellaneous improvements, they’re fun and interesting to cover. Of the two, iPadOS is the one that suffered from lack of development resources the most and whose strategy could be easily summed up as “it’s iPadOS 16, but we fixed Stage Manager”. Which, again, given the circumstances, is absolutely fine with me.

While Apple was busy with visionOS this summer, I was having fun exploring iOS 17’s collection of app updates and, as we’ll see in this review, extensive upgrades to one system feature: widgets.

As always every year: let’s dive in.

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  1. Did I ever tell you the story of how I used a Microsoft Surface in secret as my main computer from January to June 2023 until Apple unveiled the new Stage Manager for iPadOS 17 and everything was good with the world again? How I spent six months in computing wilderness and questioned every single one of my tech decisions? And how I ultimately accepted that I prefer Apple platforms because, at the end of the day, they're made by people who care about great design and user experience? I did, and you can listen to the story here↩︎

Shortcuts Rewind: Dates, Calendars, and Beyond

For this installment of Shortcuts Rewind, I’m going to focus on date and calendar actions. I’ll also touch on some of the Shortcuts actions that Apple Maps offers and explain dictionaries.

I wanted to cover date and calendar actions early in the Shortcuts Rewind series because they’re the sort of actions that come in handy over and over in a wide variety of shortcuts. Plus, date-based shortcuts are useful to lots of people. After all, everyone deals with schedules and meetings to some degree.

With Shortcuts, dates become modifiable building blocks that go hand-in-hand with events that the app allows you to decouple from your calendar app and recombine in new ways. It’s a powerful pairing that, along with an understanding of dictionaries, can be extended to other contexts over and over.

You can download each of the three shortcuts I cover at the end of each section of this story or by visiting the MacStories Shortcuts Archive, where you’ll find these and over 200 other shortcuts. Once you download one of the shortcuts, opening it on an iPad side-by-side with this walkthrough is a terrific way to learn how each works. Another technique that is effective is to rebuild each shortcut from scratch yourself, as you follow along below.

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Shortcuts Rewind: Linking Tricks Using Markdown and Rich Text

Editor’s Note

Over the past several years, Federico has built hundreds of shortcuts that are sprinkled throughout the stories he’s written. Last spring we debuted the MacStories Shortcuts Archive, a one-stop destination that collects all of those shortcuts organized by topic, so readers can find them easily.

There’s no better way to learn how to build your own shortcuts than by downloading someone else’s, which is what makes the Archive such a valuable resource to readers and one of MacStories’ most popular features. Still, it can be hard to pick up best practices and patterns or other tips and tricks from experimentation and tinkering.

That’s why today we are introducing a new series on MacStories called Shortcuts Rewind to add context to the shortcuts in the Archive. Periodically throughout the year, we will pick a few shortcuts from the Archive that we think would benefit from a further explanation, whether that’s to help new Shortcuts users learn the basics, to illustrate a particular technique that can be used across multiple shortcuts, or to automate a task that you might not have thought was possible.

Tying Shortcuts Rewind together is a new graphical approach to explaining shortcuts. As you’ll see, we’ve created a system that dispenses with distracting UI elements and breaks shortcuts into logical sets of actions. The approach allows us to simultaneously provide step-by-step instructions alongside commentary that we hope will help readers achieve a deeper understanding of Shortcuts and assist them in building their own automations.

Let’s get started.


For this first installment of Rewind, I wanted to start with a trio of relatively simple shortcuts that illustrate the power of Shortcuts’ ability to streamline the transformation of one type of content into another. All three shortcuts can be found in the Text section of the Shortcuts Archive, but there are also links to them below. The foundation of this process is the Content Graph, a core part of Shortcuts dating back to its origins as Workflow. The idea is a simple but powerful one that eliminates complexity for the user, handling much of the data compatibility and conversion chores behind the scenes with little or no effort on the part of the user.

At the heart of the three shortcuts discussed below are transformations between plain text, rich text, and URLs. Thanks to the Content Graph, Shortcuts has the flexibility to create powerful text and link handling functionality.

Read more


iOS and iPadOS 13: The MacStories Review

Following years of a judicious union between platforms, it’s time for iPad to embark on its own journey.

In looking back at major iOS releases from the recent past, it’s easy to see how building and positioning these annual updates has become a careful balancing act for Apple.

In last year’s iOS 12, we saw the company focus on improving performance, providing users with tools to understand their device usage habits, and adapting Workflow to the modern era of Siri and proactive suggestions. The strategy was largely successful: iOS 12 was regarded as Apple’s most reliable iOS release of late – a reputation that has resulted in a 90% adoption rate a year later; and the Shortcuts app – the highlight of last year from a user feature perspective – is becoming a built-in (and thus more powerful) app in iOS 13.

For all that Apple accomplished in iOS 12, however, some areas of the experience inevitably had to be put on the back-burner. Besides improvements to Reminders and Files, iOS 12 lacked a long-awaited dark mode (which was rolled out on macOS instead) as well as more substantial tweaks to the ever-evolving iOS 7 design language; chief among iOS 12’s absentee list, of course, was iPad. Even though Apple had trained users to expect major additions to the tablet platform on a biennial schedule (see iOS 9 and iOS 11), the lack of meaningful iPad features in iOS 12 spurred a contentious discussion when it became apparent that new iPad Pro hardware was so far ahead of its software, it legitimized asking whether investing in that hardware was even worth it.

The annual debate that surrounds which features make it into each major iOS release is symptomatic of a complicated truth: iOS isn’t just the operating system that runs on iPhones anymore, and these annual releases are more than a mere collection of updated apps. iOS is the platform for an ecosystem of devices – from our wrists and speakers to cars and TV sets – and its changes have repercussions that ripple far beyond an updated Reminders app or a new icon set.

This, of course, has been the case for a few years at this point, but the nature of iOS as an all-encompassing platform has never been as evident as it is today in iOS 13. For the first time since I started reviewing Apple’s annual iOS updates, it feels like the company is now keenly aware that a new iOS version has to cover an array of themes that can’t be pushed back for scheduling reasons. A single area of attention isn’t enough anymore – not for the Apple of 2019 as an economic, political, and social force, and not for iOS, the engine powering devices that aren’t just screens for apps, but bona fide lifestyle computers.

As a result, there’s something for everyone in iOS 13 and all the recurring themes of Tim Cook’s Apple are touched upon this time around. iOS 13 improves Face ID recognition and promises improvements to app download sizes and performance. Apple is sending strong signals on its commitment to privacy as a feature with a new sign-in framework for apps and enhancements to location tracking controls and HomeKit cameras. iOS’ design language is getting its biggest update in years with dark mode, new tools for developers to express colors and embed glyphs in their user interfaces, updated context menus, and redesigns aimed at facilitating one-handed interactions. We have notable improvements to built-in apps, including the rebuilt Reminders and Health, an overhauled Files app, and hundreds of quality-of-life tweaks that, in big and small ways, make iOS more capable and efficient.

No stone is left unturned in iOS 13 – and that includes iPad too.

The iPad experience has always been largely consistent with the iPhone – particularly since Apple unified core iOS interactions around a screen without a Home button – but also distinct from it. iOS 13 makes this distinction official by splitting itself in a second branch called iPadOS, which uses iOS as the foundation but is specifically optimized and designed for iPad.

It was clear when the new iPad Pro launched in late 2018 that it told only one part of a bigger story about the role of the tablet in Apple’s modern ecosystem. With iPadOS, Apple is ready to tell that full story: while the iPad has always been an extension of iOS, sharing key similarities with the iPhone hardware and software, it’s been evolving – arguably, a bit too slowly – into a different breed of computer that is fundamentally distinct from a phone.

We’ve been able to observe this divergence starting in iOS 9 with Split View multitasking and Apple Pencil, and the transition continued with iOS 11 and its drag and drop-infused environment. It was only natural (and well-deserved) for the iPad to begin advancing in a parallel direction to iOS – informed and inspired by it, but also capable of growing on its own and tackling problems that an iPhone doesn’t have to solve.

From this standpoint, there are two sides to iOS 13: on one hand, an underlying tide that raises all platforms, featuring a distillation of themes Apple comes back to on an annual basis; on the other, a fork in the road, opening a new path for the iPad’s next decade. And against this backdrop, a single question looms large:

Can Apple balance both?

Read more



    Beyond the Tablet: Seven Years of iPad as My Main Computer

    For the past seven years, I’ve considered the iPad my main computer. Not my only one, and not the most powerful one I own, but the computer which I use and enjoy using the most.

    I’ve told this story on various occasions before, but it’s worth mentioning for context once again. My iPad journey began in 2012 when I was undergoing cancer treatments. In the first half of the year, right after my diagnosis, I was constantly moving between hospitals to talk to different doctors and understand the best strategies for my initial round of treatments. Those chemo treatments, it turned out, often made me too tired to get any work done. I wanted to continue working for MacStories because it was a healthy distraction that kept my brain busy, but my MacBook Air was uncomfortable to carry around and I couldn’t use it in my car as it lacked a cellular connection. By contrast, the iPad was light, it featured built-in 3G, and it allowed me to stay in touch with the MacStories team from anywhere, at any time with the comfort of a large, beautiful Retina display.

    The tipping point came when I had to be hospitalized for three consecutive weeks to undergo aggressive chemo treatments; in that period of time, I concluded that the extreme portability and freedom granted by the iPad had become essential for me. I started exploring the idea of using the iPad as my primary computer (see this story for more details); if anything were to ever happen to me again that prevented being at my desk in my home office, I wanted to be prepared. That meant embracing iOS, iPad apps, and a different way of working on a daily basis.

    I realized when writing this story that I’ve been running MacStories from my iPad for longer than I ever ran it from a Mac. The website turned 10 last month, and I’ve managed it almost exclusively from an iPad for seven of those years. And yet, I feel like I’m still adapting to the iPad lifestyle myself – I’m still figuring out the best approaches and forcing myself to be creative in working around the limitations of iOS.

    On one hand, some may see this as an indictment of Apple’s slow evolution of the iPad platform, with biennial tablet-focused iOS releases that have left long-standing issues still yet to be fixed. And they’re not wrong: I love working from my iPad, but I recognize how some aspects of its software are still severely lagging behind macOS. On the other hand, I won’t lie: I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of “figuring out the iPad” and pushing myself to be creative and productive in a more constrained environment.

    In addition to discovering new apps I could cover on MacStories, rethinking how I could work on the iPad provided me with a mental framework that I likely wouldn’t have developed on a traditional desktop computer. If I was in a hospital bed and couldn’t use a Mac, that meant someone else from the MacStories team had to complete a specific, Mac-only task. In a way, the limitations of the iPad taught me the importance of delegation – a lesson I was forced into. As a result, for the first couple of years, the constrained nature of the iPad helped me be more creative and focused on my writing; before the days of Split View and drag and drop, the iPad was the ideal device to concentrate on one task at a time.

    Over the following couple of years, I learned how to navigate the iPad’s limitations and started optimizing them to get more work done on the device (I was also cancer-free, which obviously helped). This is when I came across the iOS automation scene with apps such as Pythonista, Editorial, Drafts, and eventually Workflow. Those apps, despite the oft-unreliable nature of their workarounds, enabled me to push iOS and the iPad further than what Apple had perhaps envisioned for the device at the time; in hindsight, building hundreds of automations for Workflow prepared me for the bold, more powerful future of Shortcuts. Automation isn’t supposed to replace core functionality of an operating system; normally, it should be an enhancement on the side, an addition for users who seek the extra speed and flexibility it provides. Yet years ago, those automation apps were the only way to accomplish more serious work on the iPad. I’m glad I learned how to use them because, at the end of the day, they allowed me to get work done – even though it wasn’t the easiest or most obvious path.

    When Apple announced the iPad Pro in 2015, it felt like a vindication of the idea that, for lots of iOS users – myself included – it was indeed possible to treat the iPad as a laptop replacement. And even though not much has changed (yet?) since 2017’s iOS 11 in terms of what the iPad Pro’s software can do, the modern iPad app ecosystem is vastly different from the early days of the iPad 3 and iOS 5, and that’s all thanks to the iPad Pro and Apple’s push for pro apps and a financially-viable App Store.

    We now have professional apps such as Ulysses, Agenda, Things, Keep It, and iA Writer, which, in most cases, boast feature parity with their Mac counterparts; we have examples of iOS-only pro tools like Pixelmator Photo, LumaFusion, Shortcuts, and Working Copy, which are ushering us into a new era of mobile productivity; and both from a pure iPad-hardware and accessory standpoint, we have more choice than ever thanks to a larger, more inclusive iPad lineup, remarkable Pro hardware, and solid options to extend the iPad via keyboards, USB-C accessories, and more.

    Seven years after I started (slowly) replacing my MacBook Air with an iPad, my life is different, but one principle still holds true: I never want to find myself forced to work on a computer that’s only effective at home, that can’t be held in my hands, or that can’t be customized for different setups. For this reason, the iPad Pro is the best computer for the kind of lifestyle I want.

    However, the iPad is not perfect. And so in the spirit of offering one final update before WWDC and the massive release for iPad that iOS 13 will likely be, I thought I’d summarize seven years of daily iPad usage in one article that details how I work from the device and how I’d like the iPad platform to improve in the future.

    In this story, I will explore four different major areas of working on the iPad using iOS 12 system features, third-party apps, and accessories. I’ll describe how I optimized each area to my needs, explain the solutions I implemented to work around the iPad’s software limitations, and argue how those workarounds shouldn’t be necessary anymore as the iPad approaches its tenth anniversary.

    Consider this my iPad Manifesto, right on the cusp of WWDC. Let’s dive in.

    Read more



      Shortcuts Archive

      Welcome to the MacStories Shortcuts Archive, the official repository for shortcuts created by Federico Viticci and the MacStories team.

      Since the original release of Workflow in 2014, we’ve created hundreds of automations to help readers use their iOS devices more efficiently. The goal of this archive is to offer a complete catalogue of our old workflows as well as new custom shortcuts for Apple’s Shortcuts app.

      Each shortcut in this archive has been created, updated, and tested by Federico and the MacStories team. Shortcuts are organized in categories, and you can jump directly to a specific category by using one of the section links below.

      For more details on downloading and using shortcuts, see this section below.

      Want even more exclusive shortcuts? Check out Club MacStories.

      Archive Details

      Total number of shortcuts in archive: 319

      Last update: Apr 4, 2024


      Jump to section:


      Action Button

      Take Screenshot and Share

      Take a screenshot and share it.

      Get the shortcut here.

      MultiButton

      Toggle between two shortcuts from the Action button. MultiButton will run a secondary shortcut if you press the Action button within a few seconds of your first press.

      MultiButton 1.1 introduces support for CAPS (Contextual Apps Plugin System) automation; CAPS lets MultiButton run a different set of shortcuts when specific apps are open. CAPS is available exclusively for Club MacStories members and was released in Issue 409 of MacStories Weekly.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Screenshot, Markup, and Share

      Take a screenshot, edit it, and share it.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Pause Media

      If media is playing, pause playback.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Run Shortcut From Folder

      Select and run one of your shortcuts from a specific folder.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Blinds After 9

      Open the blinds/shutters via HomeKit only if you’re on your home WiFi network and if it’s after a certain hour of the day.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Apple TV

      Apple TV+ Launcher

      Launch different sections of the Apple TV+ service in Apple’s TV app. The shortcut supports the Apple TV+ front page and individual shows, and can be customized to launch more shows or movies.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Wake TV and Set Lights

      Wake up an Apple TV on the local network and, if it’s past sunset, dim the lights in the room.
      Check if the current time is after predicted sunset time for today.
      Add a HomeKit scene that will dim the lights.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Wake Apple TV

      Wake an Apple TV on the local network and show the remote control for it on an iOS device. Best used as a widget for fast activation.

      Get the shortcut here.


      App Store

      Redeem iTunes Code

      Redeem an iTunes code contained in the system clipboard. The shortcut will prompt you to pick a code you previously copied before launching the App Store’s redemption page, where the code will be already filled in.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Open the Search page of the App Store.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Store: Apps

      Open the Apps page of the App Store.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Store: Today

      Open the Today page of the App Store.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Release Notes

      Copy the release notes for the latest version of an app shared from the App Store. By default, the shortcut searches the U.S. App Store, but you can change the country to your locale.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Store: Games

      Open the Games page of the App Store.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Store: Arcade

      Open the Apple Arcade page of the App Store.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save App Store Screenshots

      Search the App Store for an app and save screenshots from the product page to the Photos app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Store: Updates

      Open the Updates page of the App Store.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Scan iTunes Gift Card

      Scan an iTunes gift card, extract its text, and open the App Store to redeem the associated promo code. You can import an image of a gift card from the clipboard or take a new picture. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Store Story as Safari Reader Article

      Read an App Store story (from the ‘Today’ tab) as a text-only webpage, cleaned up by Safari Reader. To run the shortcut, copy a link to an editorial story from the App Store first.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save App to Trello

      Save an app from the App Store as a card in Trello. The app’s icon, title, and other metadata are used to compose a rich card in Trello.

      Get the shortcut here.

      App Store: Subscriptions

      Open the Subscriptions page of the App Store.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save App Store Icon

      Search the App Store for an app and save its icon to the Photos app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Search for an app on the App Store, then copy its link to the system clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Calendar

      Upcoming Events

      View your next five calendar events in a list. The selected event will be opened in the system Calendar app. This shortcut can be used from the widget.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Days Until…

      Calculate how many days are left until a date you can type in natural language. The shortcut was designed in English, but can be adapted to other languages as well.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Load Calendar Set

      This shortcut lets you reopen one of your existing calendar sets in Fantastical. Optionally, you can also pair a specific set with a specific calendar view in Fantastical.

      The shortcut works on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and it uses Fantastical’s native Shortcuts integration.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Create Event From Date

      Create a new calendar event based on a date passed to the shortcut as input.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Time Until Important Event Location

      Calculate how much time you have until an important event comes up. If you specify a location to filter important events, driving time to the selected address is also calculated by the shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Fantastical Schedule (Multi-Platform)

      View Fantastical’s schedule for today using native app shortcuts for the iPhone and iPad versions of the app. The shortcut doesn’t require any user interaction to choose platforms.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Calendar Locations

      Get a list of upcoming calendar events that contain locations.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Travel Time to Next Calendar Event

      Calculate travel time to get to the next calendar event that has an address attached to it. The shortcut can be configured for different transportation methods and can be invoked from Siri or the widget.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Create Calendar Event from Template

      Create a new calendar event choosing from a list of templates. Templates are represented by a Dictionary action at the beginning of the shortcut and they support customization for calendar name, location, duration, notes, alert time, and the all-day setting. The shortcut will only ask to confirm the event’s title and start date. This shortcut was originally created for members of Club MacStories.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Weather for Upcoming Events

      Get the weather forecast for the location of an upcoming calendar event.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Days In a Month

      List of months and how many days they have.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Contacts

      Multilingual iMessage Dictation

      Dictate an iMessage to a friend from a widget. The dictation language is set automatically based on the recipient’s address stored in their contact card. iMessages are sent in the background, but you’ll be asked to confirm the message before sending it.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Message Last Photo

      Quickly send the last photo you’ve taken on your device to a contact over iMessage. The shortcut supports both photos and screenshots, but you can add filters to remove one of the two media types.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Share Song with Contact

      Add the currently playing song to an Apple Music playlist and tell one of your favorite contacts about the addition by sending them an iMessage.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Quick Contact

      Create a new contact from the Shortcuts app or Siri. The new contact is created using the Name, Email Address, Company, and Notes field.

      This shortcut requires the app Quickness to be installed.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Invert Names

      Given a list of last and first names separated by a comma, the shortcut inverts their position and returns a plain text list of first names followed by last names.

      Get the shortcut here.

      WhatsApp Launcher

      Open a WhatsApp conversation for a selected contact. The shortcut needs to be configured for contacts that have a Country in their contact card’s Address field; the country and its phone prefix (country code) have to be added in a list at the beginning of the shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Email

      Mail Merge

      A mail merge shortcut that supports multiple variables for email addresses and a second piece of information for each recipient. Each email address is automatically paired with the corresponding variable in the second group. Supports customizable message and subject templates.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Evernote

      Search your Evernote account for a specific note and copy its link to the system clipboard. Your can choose whether you want to copy the shareable URL or the local Evernote URL scheme for that note.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Evernote Scratchpad

      Quickly append text or an audio recording to a note called Scratchpad in your Evernote account. Audio will be recorded using Shortcuts’ native microphone access and recording UI; the audio file supports inline playback within Evernote.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Evernote Article

      Turn any web article into a clutter-free Evernote note that maintains formatting but removes extra visual elements from the original webpage. The shortcut has to be run in the extension from Safari or Safari View Controller.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save Safari Webarchive Evernote

      Generate a .webarchive version of the current Safari webpage and save it in the Evernote app. The shortcut needs to open Evernote for iOS and is also supported in Safari View Controller. The title of the original webpage is copied to the clipboard for easy pasting in Evernote’s title field.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save Quote to Evernote

      Save selections from Safari webpages as highlights in Evernote. Ideal for articles that will have multiple highlights, which will be appended to the same note. The shortcut integrates with the ShareQuote shortcut to make it easy to share highlights with iOS extensions later.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Twitter to Evernote

      Convert a tweet URL into an embeddable rich text version that contains the original text and links of the tweet. The rich text is then appended to an existing note in Evernote. The shortcut cleans up shortened Twitter links, maintains author names, and lets you customize the list of Evernote notes to append tweets to.

      Get the shortcut here.

      EverSafari

      A comprehensive menu to save webpages from Safari as notes in Evernote. The shortcut supports saving links as rich text, .webarchive files, PDFs, plain text, or attachments. The shortcut can either create new notes or append to an existing note. See comments below for instructions on how to store a list of your favorite Evernote notebooks, tags, and notes.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save to Evernote and Share

      Save any file shared with the Shortcuts extension to Evernote as a new note. At the end of the shortcut, an Evernote link to the note is copied to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Append a link to an existing note in Evernote. The link is either passed to the Shortcuts extension or read from the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Files

      Compress Dropbox Files

      Pick multiple files from Dropbox and share them as a single .zip archive.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Extract Individual Files from Zip Archive

      Given a compressed archive passed as input via the share sheet, this shortcut can extract the archive and save individual files contained inside it to iOS document providers.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Delete Old Files

      Delete old files in a specific folder.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Pick a file from iCloud Drive (or other document providers) and create a shareable iCloud Mail Drop URL to let other people download the file.

      Get the shortcut here.

      File Downloader

      Download a file from a URL stored in the system clipboard. The downloaded file can be saved in iCloud Drive or other storage providers with a native Files interface.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Select Folder, Compress, and Share

      Get the shortcut here.

      Clip to iCloud Clipboard

      Clip any kind of text contained in the system clipboard to a Clipboard.txt file stored in iCloud Drive. This shortcut is designed to allow you to keep a record of previously copied bits of text and easily sync them across devices. The shortcut can be executed from the widget, and it also supports rich text and URLs.

      Get the shortcut here.

      iCloud Drive Clipboard

      Copy items items previously clipped to the Clipboard.txt file in iCloud Drive back to the system clipboard. The shortcut can be executed from the widget.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save Draft to Repo

      Get a document from Obsidian and back it up to another folder in Finder or Files. This shortcut is best used with the free Obsidian Shortcut Launcher plugin, which can send the title of the current document from Obsidian to Shortcuts.

      Get the shortcut here.

      FS Bookmarks

      Create bookmarks for files and folders stored in iCloud Drive (and third-party file providers) that you can reuse as direct launchers. FS Bookmarks requires Scriptable, and it generates launchers that reopen files and folders directly in the Files app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Zip and Share

      Compress the input items into a .zip archive and share the archive file with app extensions. You can enter the name of the archive manually.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Scan Document

      Scan a document using iOS’ native document scanner. The shortcut lets you choose whether you want to share the scanned file as an image or run OCR on it to extract text. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Super ML

      Increase the resolution of images selected in Finder using Pixelmator’s ML-powered action.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Pick File

      Pick a file from iCloud Drive and share it with other apps through extensions.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Document OCR

      Perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on a document. You can import a document from Files or a scanned image from Photos. Recognized text is copied to the clipboard and can be shared with app extensions. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Extract All Files from Archive

      Extract all files from a compressed archive passed as input and save them into the same folder in iCloud Drive/Shortcuts. The name of the archive is used to create a new destination folder in Shortcuts’ iCloud Drive container.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Share Dropbox Photo

      Select an image from the photo library and upload it to Dropbox. The shortcut returns a public Dropbox link to the image that can be shared with other people.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Rename and Save File

      Rename the file passed as input to the shortcut and save it somewhere else with app extensions. Designed to compensate for the lack of file renaming in the ‘Save to Files’ extensions in iOS 12.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Preview Folder Contents

      Preview the contents of a folder stored inside iCloud Drive/Shortcuts. The shortcut lets you filter items by name; if no name is entered, all files contained in the folder are returned. You can choose to preview a selected file with Quick Look or share it with extensions.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Shortcuts Backup

      Create a .zip archive containing a backup of all your shortcuts. The backup file is saved under the /Backups/ folder of Shortcuts’ iCloud Drive directory.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Health

      Glass of Water

      Log a small glass of water in HealthKit. By default, the shortcut logs 150 milliliters of water to the Health app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Log Menstruation

      Check if you recently logged menstruation or if you might be due to log it again and prompt to log bleeding if that is the case.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Log Weight

      Log your current weight in HealthKit by entering a numeric value. The shortcut can also be used from the widget.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Last Coffee

      Check how long ago you had your last coffee based on when caffeine was last logged in HealthKit. You can use this shortcut in the widget and Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Log Espresso

      Log a cup of espresso as caffeine intake in HealthKit. By default, the shortcut logs 50 milligrams of caffeine to the Health app. The shortcut can also be used from the widget and Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Log Waist

      Log your current waist circumference in HealthKit by entering a numeric value. The shortcut can also be used from the widget. By default, the shortcut converts centimeters to millimeters.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Asleep Time

      Read the HealthKit database to find out how much you slept last night.

      You can modify the shortcut to customize Siri’s response based on how much time you slept.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Water Today

      Check how much water you’ve drunk today based on water entries logged in HealthKit. You can use this shortcut in the widget and Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Export Blood Pressure

      Generate a report of your last blood pressure measurements, sorted by date, and export them as a text file. The HealthKit action can be customized to return larger or smaller subsets of measurements.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Median Heart Rate

      Calculate your median heart rate for the past two weeks.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Home

      Electricity Price

      Uses the ComEd Current Hour Average electricity price API for Northern Illinois to return the average price of electricity for the current hour in USD.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Shuffle Playlist on HomePod

      Shuffle a playlist on a specific HomePod, with a specific volume level, and dim the lights. The shortcut needs to be configured based on speakers and HomeKit devices in your home.

      Get the shortcut here.


      JavaScript

      Video Speed Up

      Speed up a native video player in Safari choosing from a list of speed presets.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Full Screen Video

      Enable full-screen mode for a native video player in Safari.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Mac

      Toggle Up Next

      Toggle the Up Next sidebar in the Music app for Mac on and off. The shortcut uses AppleScript and GUI scripting to determine whether the sidebar is shown or not.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Wake Mac + Login

      Wake the display connected to a Mac on the same local network as your iOS device and paste your password in the login screen by simulating keystrokes.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Copy Selected Track Info

      Get the artist and track title for the currently selected song in the Music app for macOS Monterey. The shortcut uses AppleScript integration to access the song that is selected in the Music app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Play iTunes Playlist

      Choose a playlist to start playing with iTunes on a Mac. The shortcut requires you to enter the exact name of playlists you want to play once, upon configuring the shortcut for the first time.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Reeder -> Raindrop

      To use this shortcut with Reeder, first assign the keyboard shoortcut ⌥↑c to Reeder’s Copy Link action. The Apple Script will simulate that keyboard shortcut for the item you’re viewing in Reeder and then send it to Raindrop.io’s URL scheme, which will open a tab in Safari, save the link to Raindrop.io, close the tab, and return to Reeder after a 3 second wait.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Check youtube-dl Formats

      Use youtube-dl to check the available download formats for a YouTube link copied to the clipboard on iOS. The shortcut assumes youtube-dl has been installed on a local Mac under the /usr/local/bin folder.

      Get the shortcut here.

      HomePod Speaker Volume

      Change the volume of multiple HomePods (or AirPlay speakers) connected to iTunes at once. The list of preset volume levels is customizable. The shortcut can also be run from the iOS widget.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Split View Presets

      Create a split view with two apps by choosing from a list of app pairs saved as presets. You can create as many presets as you want and instantly recreate their workspaces with this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Set Active Speakers and Volume

      Change the volume of individual HomePods (or AirPlay speakers) connected to iTunes and choose which ones should be currently active. The shortcut lets you select one or multiple speakers as well as enter an exact volume level.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Reeder -> Matter

      To use this shortcut with Reeder, first assign the keyboard shoortcut ⌥↑c to Reeder’s Copy Link action. The Apple Script will simulate that keyboard shortcut for the item you’re viewing in Reeder and then send it to the read-later app Matter, confirming that the save has occurred with a notification.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Wake Mac

      Wake the display connected to a Mac on the same local network as your iOS device.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Sleep Mac

      Put the display connected to a Mac on the same local network as your iOS device to sleep.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Sidecar Launcher (Ticci’s Version)

      A simplified version of Jovany Ocasio’s Sidecar Launcher companion shortcut that toggles between enabling Sidecar for a nearby iPad or turning off Sidecar on macOS. See Federico’s MacPad story for more details.

      Please note: this shortcut requires enabling scripting actions from Shortcuts’ settings.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Reading List Exporter

      Export your Safari Reading List items to other apps. This shortcut was designed to run on macOS by reading the contents of Safari’s Bookmarks.plist database. If you’ve already exported this file, the shortcut can run on iOS and iPadOS too.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Pick Windows and Create Pairs

      Split the screen using two windows from currenly running apps. You can choose up to two windows from a list, so one will be resized to fill the left half of the screen, and the other will fill the right half.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Set Mac Clipboard

      Set your Mac’s clipboard to the contents of the current iOS clipboard. The shortcut cleans up the iOS clipboard by escaping line breaks and quotes.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Script Builder

      Script Builder, a shortcut made by MacStories.net’s John Voorhees, allows users to convert multiple shortcuts into AppleScript .scpt files.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Toggle iTunes

      Toggle the player state of the iTunes app on a Mac on the same local network as your iOS device.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Toggle Lyrics

      Toggle the lyrics sidebar in the Music app for Mac on and off. The shortcut uses AppleScript and GUI scripting to determine whether the lyrics sidebar is shown or not.

      Get the shortcut here.

      iTunes Current Song

      Get the album artwork of the song currently playing on iTunes on the Mac.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Split Last Two Apps

      Place the two most recently used apps side-by-side, filling the left and right halves of the display.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Markdown

      Markdown Table of Contents

      Extract section headings from Markdown text shared with the extension and generate a Table of Contents for headings between H2 and H6. The final list supports indentation and is copied to the clipboard as Markdown.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Obsidian Clip for Mac

      Obisidian Clip for Mac is a variant of MD Clip for Mac. The shortcut formats selected text in Safari as a blockquote and adds a link to the source material and then prepends the results to an Obsidian file called @scratchpad using the Advanced URI Obsidian community plugin. To use the shortcut, make sure you’ve installed the Advanced URI plugin and have specified the vault and file you want to use in the URL action below. In Safari, select text and then select Obsidian Clip for Mac from the app’s Services menu.

      Obsidian Clip for Mac was originally published as part of macOS Monterey: The MacStories Review by John Voorhees on MacStories.net.

      Get the shortcut here.

      MD Clip for Mac

      MD Clip for Mac formats selected text in Safari as a blockquote and adds a link to the source material and then copies the results to the clipboard. To use the shortcut, select text in Safari and then select MD Clip for Mac from the app’s Services menu.

      Obsidian Clip for Mac was originally published as part of macOS Monterey: The MacStories Review by John Voorhees on MacStories.net.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Preview Markdown

      Preview Markdown text passed to the Shortcuts extension as converted HTML. The shortcut works from any app that can pass Markdown-formatted plain text to the share sheet, and it’ll open a rich preview inline using a native web view.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Spreadsheet to Markdown Table

      Convert a spreadsheet to a MultiMarkdown table. For the best experience, select a table in Numbers, copy cells, then run the shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Dot Exporter

      Get a specific dot from the Tot app and export it as a Markdown file to the Files app or Finder.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Safari Markdown Selection

      Convert a rich text selection from a Safari webpage to Markdown and copy the plain text to the clipboard. The shortcut needs to run as an extension in Safari.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Strip Out Markdown

      Take Markdown from the system clipboard and put a cleaned-up version without markers back into the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Media

      myTunes

      myTunes uses two third-party apps, Play and Downie, to download YouTube videos tagged in Play with ‘music-video,’ and then remove the tag. myTunes can be used in combination with the third-party app Channels to automate the process of creating a virtual music video channel. Details on how to set up a Virtual Channel can be found in the story that accompanies this shortcut on MacStories.net.

      Get the shortcut here.

      SwitchFrame

      Frame Nintendo Switch screenshots with a physical Nintendo Switch frame. By default, the shortcut looks for any screenshots with a resolution of 1280x720 or 1920x1080 in your Photos library and asks you to pick one; however, you can also pass screenshots imported with the ShortSwitch shortcut and frame them with SwitchFrame instantly.

      Get the shortcut here.

      ShortSwitch

      Wirelessly transfer screenshots or videos from a Nintendo Switch to an iPhone or iPad. After entering ‘sharing mode’ on a Switch console, the shortcut can connect to the Switch, fetch media, and enable you to save items to Photos or Files, copy them to the clipboard, share them via the share sheet, or frame them with the separate SwitchFrame shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Encode to Audio and Share

      Encode the file passed to the shortcut as audio and apply custom metadata to it such as artwork, artist name, and album. The audio file is then shared with extensions.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Play HomePod

      Set the playback destination to a specific HomePod on your local network and start playing audio.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Timestamper

      Timestamper is a shortcut created by John Voorhees for MacStories’s Automation April. The shortcut is one of three that make up Timestamped Notes, a system for creating timestamped notes while you watch video or listen to audio. Timestamper is a simple shortcut that records a clock-based timestamp in your notes as you take notes. The shortcut’s final action requires BetterTouchTool, but it can be removed if you prefer, requiring the shortcut’s timestamp to be manually pasted into your note-taking app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      YouTube Watch Later

      Open the default watch later queue in the official YouTube app for iPhone and iPad.

      Get the shortcut here.

      From Play to Juno

      Open a video previously saved in the Play app in the Juno app for visionOS.

      Get the shortcut here.

      youtube-dl

      Download a video from YouTube using youtube-dl and the a-Shell app for iPhone or iPad. The shortcut accepts any YouTube URLs passed from Safari or the YouTube app via the share sheet. Detailed instructions on how to set up youtube-dl and a-Shell can be found here.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Search YouTube

      Type a search query and open search results in the YouTube app. The shortcut supports both keyboard input and conversational mode in Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Pause HomePods

      Pause all HomePods (or AirPlay 2 speakers) around the house in one go. The shortcut supports adding as many ‘Pause’ actions as necessary for each speaker you want to pause.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Handoff to HomePod

      Hand off audio playback (for Music and Podcasts) from your current device to a HomePod of your choice. You can customize the list and names of HomePods (based on your setup) in a menu.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Round Avatar

      Create a round avatar based on someone’s Twitter profile picture. To run this shortcut, save a profile image from Twitter first.

      Get the shortcut here.

      From YouTube to Juno

      Open a video from the YouTube website in the Juno app for visionOS.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Lock / Unlock

      Open the Display & Brightness page in the Settings app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Timestamp Converter

      Timestamp Converter is a shortcut created by John Voorhees for MacStories’s Automation April. The shortcut is one of three that make up Timestamped Notes, a system for creating timestamped notes while you watch video or listen to audio. To use Timestamp Converter, copy your timestamped notes to the clipboard and run this shortcut, which convertes them to conincide with the time counter of the video you took notes on. Once the shortcut completes the calculation, you’ll have the option to view and copy, save, or share the results.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Add or Remove Speaker

      Add or remove speakers to and from your audio playback setup.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Video Startup

      Video Startup is a shortcut created by John Voorhees for MacStories’s Automation April. The shortcut is one of three that make up Timestamped Notes, a system for creating timestamped notes while you watch video or listen to audio. Video Startup is a Mac-only shortcut that requires the app BetterTouchTool. The other shortcuts that are part of Timestamped Notes can be used without this one by manually starting your video or audio and crating your first timestamped note.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Handoff from HomePod

      Hand off audio playback (for Music and Podcasts) from a HomePod of your choice to the current device. You can customize the list and names of HomePods (based on your setup) in a menu.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Plex Inspect Section IDs

      Find the IDs for media sections of your Plex library running on a local server. These IDs can then be used with another shortcut to refresh (scan) individual Plex media sections such as Movies or TV shows. The shortcut requires your Plex token and returns raw XML data. The shortcut was originally created for Club MacStories members.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Plex Scan Section

      Refresh (scan) individual Plex media sections such as Movies or TV shows from Shortcuts or Siri. The shortcut requires your Plex token to communicate with a Plex server running on the same local network as the iOS device. The shortcut was originally created for Club MacStories members.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Music

      Apple Music Wrapped

      Create a detailed report for the music you’ve listened to in the past year. The shortcut can optionally create a Top 25 playlist for your most played songs and generate a PDF report. The shortcut is primarily designed for Apple Music subscribers.
      To calculate number of plays, the shortcut looks at songs that have been played in full without skipping and added to your library in any given year.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Playlists

      Start a playlist in Apple Music with shuffle enabled. The shortcut needs to be configured with the names of your playlists from the Music app. The shortcut supports adding friendly names for playlists if you don’t want to display their actual names.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Apple Music Siri Playlists

      View and open Apple Music’s new playlists without using Siri.
      Get the shortcut here.

      MusicBot

      MusicBot is the all-in-one Apple Music assistant, powered by Shortcuts. Entirely customizable and designed for Apple Music, MusicBot speeds up access to your favorite music and comes with dozens of features to help you play albums, browse songs, check out new releases, and even listen to the Apple Music 1 radio or ambient sounds by Apple Music. Additionally, MusicBot lets you create your own collection of favorite albums and new music releases, comes with AirPlay 2 support and various audio controls, and provides you with Smart Mixes – intelligent playlists to discover songs you love from your Music library with one tap. In its latest update, MusicBot also integrates with Shazam to recognize songs, lets you read the latest music news and album reviews, and fully supports iOS 14’s compact UI.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Find Lyrics

      Get the title of the currently playing song and search for its lyrics on Google.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Notes

      Copy Note UUID and URL Scheme

      Find a note in the Notes app and copy its UUID from the Shortcuts Content Graph. The shortcut uses the UUID to generate a URL scheme launcher for that specific note in the Notes app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Append to Note

      Quickly append text to a note called Scratchpad in your Notes app. Audio will be recorded using Shortcuts’ native microphone access and dictation feature.

      Get the shortcut here.

      View Recent Notes

      Bring up a list of recently modified notes and quickly reopen one of them.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Dictate Note (with Menu)

      Use iOS’ native speech-to-text to dictate a note in a language of your choosing from the Shortcuts widget. The list of supported languages can be customized in the shortcut. Starting with Shortcuts 2.2, it is possible to save dictated text to Notes in the background – directly from the widget – without showing the Notes composer. The Notes action can be replaced with other note-taking apps such as Evernote or Drafts.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Dictate to Note

      Quickly append text to a Scratchpad note in Apple’s Notes app using dictation.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Attach to Bear Note

      Append a file or image to the bottom of a note in Bear. The shortcut will either present the native Files or Photos picker before launching the Bear app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Find Notes (with Menu)

      Open frequently used notes choosing from a list of titles or manually search for a specific note in the Notes app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Photos

      Get Image Resolution

      Get the resolution of any image passed as input. This shortcut supports images copied to the clipboard, the iOS and iPadOS share sheet, picking images from Files, or images selected in Finder on macOS. The shortcut can also run as a Quick Action on macOS.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Copy Last Photo

      Copy the latest image from the Photos app to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Preview Photo Metadata

      Preview photos shared from Photos’ share sheet in a custom preview page. The preview contains the photo, its timestamp, plus metadata including an interactive map. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Apple Frames

      Add device frames to screenshots for iPhones (8/SE, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 generations in mini/standard/Plus/Pro Max sizes), iPad Pro (11” and 12.9”, 2018-2022 models), iPad Air (10.9”, 2020-2022 models), iPad mini (2021 model), Apple Watch S4/5/6/7/8/Ultra, iMac (24” model, 2021), MacBook Air (2020-2022 models), and MacBook Pro (2021 models). The shortcut supports portrait and landscape orientations, but does not support Display Zoom; on iPadOS and macOS, the shortcut supports Default and More Space resolutions. If multiple screenshots are passed as input, they will be combined in a single image.

      The shortcut can be run in the Shortcuts app, as a Home Screen widget, as a Finder Quick Action, or via the share sheet. The shortcut also supports an API for automating input images and framed results.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Get Images from Webpage

      Count the number of images contained in the current Safari webpage. This shortcut can run in Safari and Safari View Controller from the share sheet.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Convert to JPEG

      Convert images selected in Finder to JPEG. This shortcut is especially useful to quickly convert .heic photos sent via AirDrop from an iPhone to JPEG for greater compatibility.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Capture and Copy

      Capture what’s onscreen, frame it, and copy it to rhe clipboard. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      On This Day

      Search your photo library for old photos taken on this day in previous years. The shortcut can look for photos from multiple years, with multiple photos per day. If more than one photo is found, photos are resized to square and combined in a grid.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Image Grid

      Combine multiple images in a single grid.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Encode Image

      Encode any image previously copied to the clipboard in Base64. The resulting string of plain text is copied to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Clipboard and Copy

      Frame an image from the clipboard and copy it. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Markup Screenshots

      Markup multiple screenshots in a row using iOS’ native screenshot annotation tools. You can choose to save or share the edited version. Optionally, the originals can be deleted.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Combine Images

      Combine multiple images into a single image. The shortcut supports images passed as input via the extension as well as picking images manually from the photo library.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Share Clipboard Image

      Share an image from the system clipboard with app extensions. The shortcut supports both images and photo media contained in the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      iPhone 11 Lens Inspector

      Visualize the lens used to capture a photo. The shortcut can run inside the Photos app and supports the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro’s wide, telephoto, and ultra-wide lenses.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Live Text Extractor

      Show and copy text found in any image via Live Text. The shortcut supports images passed via the share sheet, quick actions in Finder, or picking manually from Photos.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Crop to Rounded Rectangle and Save

      Select a photo, crop it a rounded rectangle, and save it back to the Photos app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      EXIF Inspector

      View EXIF metadata for a selected photo.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Screenshot → Web

      Screenshot -> Web allows you to select multiple image files that the shortcut resizes to a standard width, converts to PNG, and then optimizes for the web. The image actions are part of Pixelmator Pro and will be available soon after the release of macOS Monterey.

      Screenshot -> Web was originally published as part of macOS Monterey: The MacStories Review by John Voorhees on MacStories.net.

      Get the shortcut here.

      iPhone 11 Lens Browser (Extended)

      Filter your photo library by the lens used to capture a photo. The shortcut is optimized for the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, and it supports the wide, telephoto, and ultra-wide lenses. By default, the shortcut looks at the last 50 photos from your library and opens a custom preview showing metadata for each photo. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Live Photo to GIF

      Convert a Live Photo to an animated GIF and preview it in Quick Look. The GIF can be saved to the Photos app directly from the preview.

      Get the shortcut here.

      iPhone 11 Lens Browser

      Filter your photo library by the lens used to capture a photo. The shortcut is optimized for the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, and it supports the wide, telephoto, and ultra-wide lenses. By default, the shortcut looks at the last 300 photos from your library.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Photo Translator

      Translate text recognized from images (thanks to Live Text) to any language supported by Apple’s Translate app. The shortcut accepts images from the share sheet, quick actions in Finder, picking from the Photos app, or taking new pictures with the Camera.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Convert to JPEG and Copy

      Convert any image previously copied to the clipboard to JPEG, stripping metadata from it. The converted image is copied to the clipboard, and you can optionally save it in the Photos app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Clipboard

      Frame an image from the clipboard and save it into a specific folder of Files or Finder. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Latest and QuickLook

      Frame the most recent screenshot from the Photos app and preview it. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Number

      Get a specific number of screenshots, frame them as individual images, and save them in a specific folder of Files and Finder. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      OCR with Prizmo Go

      Perform OCR on an image (either captured from the camera or selected from Photos) using Prizmo Go. The shortcut can ask Prizmo Go to perform standard OCR or Cloud OCR. You can choose to copy extracted text to the clipboard or send it as a text file to DEVONthink.

      Get the shortcut here.

      WallCreator Automated

      Automatically create and install wallpapers for iPhone and iPad featuring solid colors or gradients. Wallpapers are automatically sized for different devices. This shortcut is designed to be used as a Personal Automation in the Shortcuts app via a single ‘Run Shortcut’ action.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Latest and Copy

      Frame the most recent screenshot from the Photos app and copy it to the clipboard. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Folder and Save As Individual Images

      Get all images from a specific folder, frame them as individual images, and save them in another folder of Files and Finder. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Frame Folder

      Frame all images from a specific folder in Files or Finder. This shortcut is based on the Apple Frames API and requires Apple Frames 3.1 or above.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Home Screen Icon Creator

      Create a custom icon on your iOS home screen for any app URL scheme, shortcut, contact, or solid color. This shortcut uses the same technique of Apple’s Shortcuts app to save an icon to the home screen, but extends it with the ability to fully customize the launcher, including icons and launch images. (Due to a limitation in iOS 13, you’ll have to force-quit instances of Home Screen Icon Creator-based launchers in the app switcher for the launchers to work again>)

      Get the shortcut here.


      Podcasts

      Podcast Episodes

      Start playing an episode from a podcast in the user’s Podcasts library. The shortcut allows you to customize the playback destination.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Subscribe to Podcast

      Search and subscribe to a new show in Apple’s Podcasts app. The new show will be added to your library.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Play Random Podcast Episode

      Play a random episode for a random podcast in your Podcasts app library.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Overcast Play Menu

      Start playback of a specific show or playlist in Overcast 5 using dictation. Best experienced as a widget. The shortcut requires configuration of Siri shortcuts in the Overcast app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Overcast Clip to Files

      Save a video clip shared from Overcast in the Files app. The shortcut will extract the video file from the Overcast clip (shared via the share sheet) and rename it with the title of episode being shared.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Overcast Controls

      Navigate chapters or copy links for the Overcast episode you’re currently listening to. Best used as a widget.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Task Management

      Log Completed Reminders

      Save the number of reminders completed on the current day as a new row of a Numbers spreadsheet. The completed count will be saved alongside the current date, allowing you to chart your progress over time in Numbers.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Things Checklist Template

      Create a task with a checklist in Things based on a fixed template that is stored in the Shortcuts app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Today ReScheduler

      Reschedule reminders due today (or overdue) to a later date. You can pick multiple reminders at once and change their due date by choosing from some presets or typing a date manually. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Search Reminders For…

      Search your Reminders’ note fields for a specific text query. By default, the search query is chosen from a list of pre-assembled options.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Searches the Reminders app for tasks that contain URLs in their note field. Optionally, you can add more filters (for dates, Reminders lists, etc.) to narrow down the list of results. The shortcut lets you open multiple URLs from multiple reminders at once in Safari.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Add Reminder with GoodTask Subtasks

      Create a new task in the Reminders database with subtasks based on the GoodTask syntax. Subtasks have to be entered on multiple lines and they’ll be added to the reminder’s note field. Subtasks can be previewed natively in the GoodTask app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Create Reminder

      Quickly create a new reminder from anywhere on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Optionally, the shortcut can also attach a URL previously copied to the clipboard as a rich link to the reminder.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save a link from the clipboard or shared via the extension to 2Do as a new task. You can pick from multiple lists and optionally define a tag to be automatically applied to the new task. The original link is embedded in the task as a ‘Visit URL’ action.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Tomorrow List

      Tomorrow List is a shortcut that finds all tasks with a start date one day in the future and then displays them in Things.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Find Reminder UUID

      Find the UUID of a specific reminder in the Reminders app. The shortcut requires Toolbox Pro. At the end, it copies the URL scheme of the selected reminder to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      New Reminder+

      A custom menu to create new tasks in the Reminders app. You can keep running the shortcut to add multiple reminders in a row.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Things Natural Language Parser

      An advanced shortcut that lets you create multiple tasks at once in Things using natural language parsing. The shortcut has its own special syntax to add tasks with natural language, and takes advantage of Things’ JSON Import for multiple tasks.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Create a reminder for the webpage currently open in Safari or Safari View Controller using the webpage’s original title and URL. The shortcut needs to be executed from the share sheet. The original webpage’s URL will be saved as a rich link in the reminder.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Append Notes to Things Task

      Append notes to an existing task in the Things app. The shortcut can append links or text passed to the share sheet, but it also lets you type or paste your own notes manually. To use the shortcut, you’ll have to add your Things URL token and paste the unique IDs of existing Things tasks.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Remove Time From Reminders

      Update your existing reminders to remove due times from their due dates.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Scan GoodTask Subtasks

      Scan the Reminders database for tasks that contain subtasks based on the GoodTask syntax.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Remove Completed Reminders

      Purge completed reminders from the Reminders app (and iCloud) with one tap. The shortcut displays a confirmation prompt before deleting reminders.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Webpage to Things

      Turn a Safari webpage into a rich task in Things. The shortcut can add a task with a specific tag, into a specific project, under a specific heading in Things using the webpage’s original title and URL as the task’s metadata. Additionally, you can type a due date in natural language before creating the task in Things.

      Get the shortcut here.

      ReScheduler

      Reschedule any reminder to a later date. You can pick multiple reminders at once and change their due date by choosing from some presets or typing a date manually. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Flag and Unflag

      Flag and Unflag asks whether you want to flag or unflag tasks that have been selected in things and then uses tags to simulate a flagging system, which Things doesn’t support natively.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Kick It

      Kick It finds all Things Tasks that have a deadline of today and changes the deadline to tomorrow.

      Get the shortcut here.

      New Reminder+ (Extended)

      A custom menu to create new tasks in the Reminders app. You can keep running the shortcut to add multiple reminders in a row. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Reminder Details

      Extract rich links, images, subtasks from any reminder.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Remind Me in Due

      Quickly create a new reminder in the Due app. The shortcut can be run inside the Shortcuts app or via Siri, and it’ll ask you to enter a reminder title and due date. In Siri, dates and times support natural language input.

      This shortcut requires the Due app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Create Webpage Reminder

      Create a reminder for the webpage currently open in Safari or Safari View Controller using the webpage’s original title and URL. You can type a due date in natural language. The shortcut needs to be executed from the action extension.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Text

      Create a rich text link to open one of your shortcuts in the Shortcuts app. The rich link can be pasted in apps like Notes, Mail, and other apps that support tappable links.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Create a rich text hyperlink based on a URL from the system clipboard. This shortcut is ideal for creating underlined links for apps that do not support rich link creation such as Notes or Apple Mail.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Append to Clipboard

      Get text from the share sheet and append it to the system clipboard as a new line.

      Get the shortcut here.

      ShareQuote

      Share the text shared as input via iOS extensions. The shortcut is best used as a function of other shortcuts or as a simple launcher with apps such as Drafts or Launch Center Pro.

      Get the shortcut here.

      PDF Extract

      Extract text from a PDF document picked from Files using iOS’ native text extraction APIs. The resulting text is copied to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Convert Selected Text to Rich Text

      Convert selected Markdown text in any text editor to rich text and replace the selection in the editor.

      Get the shortcut here.

      New Text File

      Quickly save a new text file anywhere in Files.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Copy Blank Characters

      Generate a string of invisible characters based on the Braille Pattern Blank Unicode character (U+2800). This is a workaround to create shortcuts with invisible names on the iOS home screen. The shortcut lets you choose how many times you’d like to repeat the blank character to avoid issues with multiple shortcuts having the same name.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Craft Focused Writing

      Craft Focused Writing is a shortcut that can be used to create a new dated note in Craft, start a ‘writing’ timer in Timery, play 30 minutes of rain sounds in Dark Noise, resize the Craft window to full screen and then hide all other apps.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Clean Up Rich Text

      Remove unnecessary styles from rich text stored in the system clipboard. This shortcut will maintain formatting for bold, italics, and links, but it’ll remove other elements such as custom fonts, font sizes, colors, and more. The cleaned up rich text will be put back in the clipboard at the end.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Tot Dot Review

      Tot Dot Review requires the third-party app Tot by The Iconfactory. The shortcut queries each of Tot’s seven dots, extracting their text. Users can then parse the resulting text to pull out URLs, Apple Maps URLs, addresses, phone numbers, and dates or copy the contents of each note in a Markdown-formatted list that’s copied to the clipboard before the contents of each dot is deleted.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Word & Character Count

      Display a count of words and characters contained in the system clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      PDF to Markdown

      Convert a PDF to Markdown and choose what to do with the resulting text document.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Time Tracking

      Timer Running

      This shortcut returns details for any currently running timer in your Toggl account.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Check Timery

      Check your currently-running timer and total time logged for the day. Timery for Toggl is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Prepare Toggl Template

      This shortcut extracts a project ID and task ID from a project in your Toggl account. These IDs are needed to configure shortcuts that start timers. To access your Toggl account over the API, enter your email:password combination below. The shortcut communicates directly with the Toggl API.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Stop Time Tracking

      Stop the current timer in the Timery app and show elapsed time.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Start Timer for Event

      Start a Toggl timer (with the Timery app) based on an event name found in a specific calendar (or multiple calendars). You have to specify the event name in a list and replace the Siri shortcuts for Timery if you don’t have the app installed.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Stop Long Timer

      Stop Long Timer is for Timery users who have a habit of letting their time tracking timers run long after they finish working. The shortcut, which works best when run as a personal automation on a regular schedule (I suggest every hour during yoru work day), will alert you when a timer has been running for more than 4 hours. You’re then given the option to stop the timer or defer any further alerts for 1-3 hours if you need more time.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Stop Timers

      This shortcut stops any currently running timer in your Toggl account.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Start Toggl Timer

      Start a new timer in your Toggl account. The timer can be assigned a specific description, task, and tag using variables.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Podcast Timers

      Start a podcast timer in Timery by picking from a list of shows. The shortcut supports manual execution as well as input text passed by Audio Hijack.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Twitter

      Open in Twitter Apps

      Open a Twitter link in Tweetbot, Twitterrific, or the official Twitter app. Both profile links and individual tweets are supported. The shortcut can be run inside the widget.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Remove tracking parameters from tweet links. The shortcut is best used to clean up links to tweets copied from Twitter’s official apps and website.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Search Twitter User’s Mentions

      View all the mentions, @replies, and quoted tweets sent to a specific Twitter user in a single screen. The shortcut is based on Twitter’s advanced search syntax and opens the native Twitter app for iOS.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Tweet Song

      Share the song you’re listening to on Twitter. The shortcut shares the song’s name, artist, and artwork.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Weather

      Netatmo Weather Today

      Return information from a Netatmo Home Weather Station, which includes indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, and data from air quality sensors.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Weather Now

      Get the current weather for a specific location provided as a street address. The shortcut can be used in the app, widget, or Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Hourly Forecasts

      Display a list of hourly forecasts for the current location.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Today Weather Forecast

      Display a weather forecast for your current location and the current day.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Dark Sky Check

      Use the Dark Sky API to display a short summary of current weather conditions and the forecast for today. The shortcut requires a free Dark Sky API key, which has to be saved in iCloud Drive. It also requires pasting your coordinates in the first Text action. Once configured, the shortcut can be used with the widget or Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Weather Report

      Display a list of forecasts for the next few days, provided by the iOS Weather app. You can pass your street address to quickly return forecasts.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Web

      Safari Markdown to Rich Text

      Convert a rich text selection from a Safari webpage to Markdown and copy the cleaned-up rich text to the clipboard. The rich text will retain basic formatting with elements such as bold, italics, and hyperlinks. The shortcut needs to run as an extension in Safari.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Create separate PDFs for each hyperlink contained in a Safari selection. Ideal for list of links that have to be converted to multiple PDFs (such as the Club MacStories newsletter archive). The resulting PDFs are saved into iCloud Drive.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Find RSS Feed

      Find the RSS feed for a Safari webpage and copy its URL to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Clip Link uses regex to verify there’s at least one URL on the clipboard. If it finds one or more, it takes each and coverts them into Markdown links using the Actions app, which is a dependency of this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Given a selection in Safari, the shortcut finds all image links contained in the selected portion of the page and offers to open them as new tabs. Selected image links are also copied to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save to Matter

      Save URLs directly to your Matter queue using the Matter API. The shortcut supports saving multiple URLs at once. A Matter API authorization token is required for this shortcut to work.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Share Long URL

      Expand a short URL into the long, unfurled version. Optionally, you can share a textshot associated with the URL by picking a photo from the library.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Safari Link uses the active browswer tab to create a Markdown link using the Actions app, which is a dependency of this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Add Clipboard Row to Google Sheet

      Send a link from the iOS clipboard to IFTTT, which will add it as a new row in a Google spreadsheet. Requires setup of an IFTTT applet to turn a webhook request into a Google Sheets row.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Convert Historical Currencies

      Convert between currencies using the Fixer.io web service. The shortcut requires a private API key to operate. The shortcut supports historical exchange rates and lets you convert between currencies using the current date or any past date. You can type dates with natural language. The converted amount is copied to the clipboard at the end.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Read by Tag

      Read by Tag uses GoodLinks’ Shortcuts actions to display a list of articles based on how they are tagged. Tapping on an article’s title opens it in GoodLinks.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Inspect RSS Feed

      Find the RSS feed for a Safari webpage and inspect its raw XML contents inside the Shortcuts extension.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Tech News

      Get the latest Apple news from one of your favorite tech blogs. Headlines can be previewed in Siri or the widget, and you can read articles using Safari View Controller.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Publish to WordPress

      Publish a Markdown post to WordPress via the Shortcuts action extension. The shortcut can extract the h1 Markdown header from a post and use it as title. Optionally, you can publish both standard and “linked list” post types by adding a custom field supported by your WordPress installation.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Threader

      Quickly open Threads profile URLs in the Threads app. This shortcut takes a screenshot of the current screen in Mastodon or Twitter, finds Threads URLs in it, and allows you to open one direcltly in the Threads app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Trigger IFTTT Webhook

      Trigger a webhook-based IFTTT applet from Shortcuts. Requires an IFTTT Maker developer key. The shortcut can be executed from Siri or the widget as well.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Get Article Hero Image

      Use Shortcuts’ native support for parsing web articles to identify the featured (hero) image of an article and save it to the Photos app. The shortcut needs to run as an extension in Safari or Safari View Controller.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Safari Speaker

      Turn an article from Safari into a spoken version you can listen to. Optionally, you can also save the spoken audio file in the Files app or other apps.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Safari Reader Article to Mail

      Share an article from Safari via Mail with a clean presentation powered by Safari Reader. You can also run the shortcut from a widget or the Shortcuts app by copying an article’s URL first.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Parse JSON Feed

      Parse any JSON feed and display a list of recent posts to choose from. You can pick any post from the list to instantly open it in Safari.

      Get the shortcut here.

      PiP Video

      Enable Picture in Picture mode for a native video player in Safari. Only works on iPad.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Quickly open a link previously copied to the clipboard with Safari. The shortcut works on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

      Get the shortcut here.

      DEVONweb

      Save a webpage from Safari as a .webarchive or PDF file in DEVONthink To Go. To use this shortcut, share a webpage from Safari with the share sheet. You can optionally add a comment to the item. At the end of the shortcut, the DEVONthink URL to the newly created item will be copied to the clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Custom RSS Reader

      Preview headlines and excerpts from your favorite blogs in a custom preview powered by RSS feeds. Toolbox Pro is required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Masto-Redirect

      Redirect user profiles and individual posts from their original Mastodon instance back to your own instance.

      Get the shortcut here.

      RSS: Subscribe in Fiery

      Find the RSS feed for a Safari webpage and subscribe to it. This shortcut requires the app Fiery Feeds to be installed.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Linked Post → Obsidian

      Create a template for a linked post to an article in Obsidian. The text selection from a Safari webpage is used as a Markdown blockquote. The original title, author name, and URL of the webpage are also preserved in the sheet.

      Get the shortcut here.

      RSS: Subscribe in NNW

      Find the RSS feed for a Safari webpage and subscribe to it. This shortcut requires the app NetNewsWire to be installed.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Save to GL

      Using GoodLinks’ URL scheme, the shortcut quick-saves a URL to GoodLinks from the share sheet adding a specific tag, which can be changed to something more relevant to you.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Reverse a list of links from a Safari webpage.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Other

      Convert Length

      Convert between centimeters and inches with a menu that lets you pick a starting unit. The shortcut supports interactions (including entering numbers) in the widget as well.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Shortcuts Picker

      Pick a Shortcuts folder, then pick a shortcut contained inside that folder you want to run.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Clip to Yoink

      Save the contents of the system clipboard to Yoink. Can be used from the Shortcuts app, the extension, the widget, or Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      WallCreator

      Create and install Home or Lock Screen wallpapers for iPhone and iPad featuring solid colors or gradients. Wallpapers are automatically sized for different devices. You can enter your favorite color codes manually, or you can let the shortcut generate random colors for you.

      Get the shortcut here.

      DEVONmenu (with Things Parser)

      A comprehensive shortcut to save a variety of file types into DEVONthink To Go. The shortcut can save Safari webpages, images, text, PDFs, videos, MP3s, and more, with the ability to add more supported file types manually. In most cases, files will be previewed natively in DEVONthink. At the end, the shortcut offers the ability to save each DEVONthink item as a task in Things using the Things Natural Language Parser syntax.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Show Clipboard

      Show the contents of the system clipboard. The shortcut can also show the type of the clipboard’s contents, and it can run as a widget or Siri command.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Focused Work Session

      Start a 20-minute focused work session by setting a timer, enabling Do Not Disturb, and starting time tracking with the Toggl iOS app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      S-GPT Encoder

      This is a helper shortcut for S-GPT that needs to be downloaded and installed separately. Without this shortcut, S-GPT won’t work.

      Get the shortcut here.

      DEVONmenu

      A comprehensive shortcut to save a variety of file types into DEVONthink To Go. The shortcut can save Safari webpages, images, text, PDFs, videos, MP3s, and more, with the ability to add more supported file types manually. In most cases, files will be previewed natively in DEVONthink.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Linked Post → Drafts 5

      Create a template for a linked post to an article in Drafts 5. The text selection from a Safari webpage is used as a Markdown blockquote. The original title, author name, and URL of the webpage are also preserved in the note.

      Get the shortcut here.

      S-GPT

      S-GPT is a shortcut to have conversations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT assistant on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The shortcut supports both text conversations as well as voice interactions when used inside Siri. S-GPT comes with native system integrations on Apple platforms including the ability to process text from your clipboard, summarize text found in photos, export conversations to Files and Finder, and even create playlists in the Music app. The shortcut requires an OpenAI API token and a helper shortcut called S-GPT Encoder that needs to be downloaded separately.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Get Coordinates

      Get your current coordinates and copy them to the clipboard. The shortcut uses native location access to identify your position on Earth. Best used with Dark Sky shortcuts for weather data.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Make PDF

      Create a PDF from an item shared with the Shortcuts extension via the share sheet. The PDF is previewed with Quick Look, from where it can be saved into other locations using the share sheet.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Copy Latest from Yoink

      Copy the most recent item saved in the Yoink app. Can be used from the Shortcuts app, the extension, the widget, or Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      URL Cleaner

      Clean up URLs by removing tracking parameters from them. The shortcut supports a built-in list of widely known tracking parameters (courtesy of Robb Knight), and can be easily expanded to remove more tracking parameters from URLs.

      Get the shortcut here.

      GoodLinked

      Create a draft for a linked post in Obsidian based on the article you’re currently reading in GoodLinks.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Request Ride to Next Event

      Request a ride to the location of your next calendar event. The shortcut relies on compatible ride sharing apps installed on your device.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Linked Post → Ulysses

      Create a template for a linked post to an article in Ulysses. The text selection from a Safari webpage is used as a Markdown blockquote. The original title, author name, and URL of the webpage are also preserved in the sheet.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Search Pocket

      Search your last 50 unread Pocket items for a particular search query, which you can type directly in the shortcut. The result you pick will be opened in Safari.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Add Attachment to Agenda

      Append attachments to existing notes in the Agenda app. The shortcuts supports both images and documents from Files, and it can be executed from the share sheet (for input files) or the Shortcuts app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      PCalc Currencies

      Run multiple currency conversions in Siri using a number from the clipboard. This shortcut requires the PCalc app to be installed. By default, it works with EUR, USD, and GBP currencies.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Get Articles from Reeder

      View articles saved for later in Reeder. You can choose a specific article from your read-later account in Reeder, or open a random article in the app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      DND Menu

      Enable Do Not Disturb choosing from three different types of expiration times: until manually turned off, until a calendar event is over, or until a specific time.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Morning Routine

      A comprehensive shortcut for your morning routine. This shortcut can read you the news, list your upcoming agenda, turn on HomeKit scenes, and much more. By default, the shortcut requires the AutoSleep app to process sleep data (AutoSleep is only available on iPhone), LookUp for the word of the day, and GoodTask for Reminders lists. It also uses the Today Weather Forecast shortcut. Optionally, the shortcut can also integrate with Apple Music, Overcast, and Deliveries. More details about this shortcut are available in the MacStories iOS 12 review.

      Get the shortcut here.

      A shortcut to navigate backlinks passed by the Obsidian Shortcut Launcher plugin. This note requires a free plugin in Obsidian and the Actions for Obsidian app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Keep It Menu

      An advanced shortcut for Keep It to save new notes in the app as either text or file attachments, which are previewed natively in Keep It. The shortcut can run from the Shortcuts app or as an extension. In addition to saving text notes and files, the shortcut can also save Safari webpages as web archives, live links, or PDF documents. At the end of shortcut, multiple references to Keep It notes can be saved as tasks in Reminders. This shortcut was originally created for members of Club MacStories.

      Get the shortcut here.

      DEVONimage

      Save one or multiple images in DEVONthink To Go for iOS. Images can be passed from the share sheet or picked manually from Photos or Files. At the end of the shortcut, a plain text reference with a DEVONthink URL for the newly created items will be copied to the system clipboard.

      Get the shortcut here.

      WordleBot

      Reformat results for a completed Wordle game to include scores for partial and perfect guesses on each line. The shortcut can ouput results as reformatted emoji or as a single image saved to the Photos app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Choose and Turn On Alarm

      Choose one of your existing alarms from the Clock app and turn it on.

      Get the shortcut here.

      LookUp Definition

      Look up a word definition using LookUp. The shortcut lets you choose among different definition types, and it can also add a word to a collection.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Change System Volume

      Quickly change your device’s system volume by picking a numeric value from a list. You can customize the list to contain your favorite volume presets, which support decimal values. The shortcut can be used from the widget as well.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Convert Temperature

      Convert between Celsius and Fahrenheit with a menu that lets you pick a starting unit. The shortcuts supports interactions (including entering numbers) in the widget as well.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Start Workday

      Start your workday by turning on a HomeKit switch, setting Hue lights to a focus mode, and waking up your Mac using the ‘Remote for Mac’ app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Hardware Keyboard Settings

      Open the Hardware Keyboard section of the Settings app. Useful to tweak the brightness level of the Magic Keyboard for iPad.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Image to Ulysses Sheet

      Add an image to an existing sheet in Ulysses. Images can be shared via the share sheet or picked manually in the Shortcuts app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Pay for Lunch

      Send money to a friend who paid for lunch. The shortcut will add the local business’ name in the payment’s note field.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Shortcut Exporter

      Create backups of individual shortcuts as files in a specific folder, then share them with extensions.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Articles by Topic

      Filter articles saved in Reeder’s Read Later account by topic. The shortcut relies on iOS’ Natural Language Processing framework to extract organization names from text. You can modify the list of topics to include the ones you prefer. Toolbox Pro and Reeder are required for this shortcut.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Travel Time to Home

      Calculate travel time to get home. The shortcut can be configured for different transportation methods and can be invoked from Siri or the widget.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Merlin’s Wisdom

      Get a random bit of wisdom from Merlin Mann.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Convert Discord URL to Club URL

      Convert a Discord link from the Club MacStories server into a universal club.macstories.net link that supports automatic redirection to the Discord website or native apps.

      Get the shortcut here.

      DEVONsearch

      Search your DEVONthink To Go database (or specific group) for one or multiple files matching a series of keywords. The shortcut can either perform a basic search or a NEAR-operator search; results can be displayed in Shortcuts (with a ranking score) or in the DEVONthink app.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Open Settings

      Open a specific page or sub-section of the Settings app. This shortcut contains over 120 Settings URLs, and you can choose which one to open from a list. You can also create standalone shortcuts for each URL.

      The shortcut works in the app, widget, and Siri.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Given a link to an item copied from the iTunes Store, this shortcut lets you easily transform it into an affiliate link, which you can share with extensions.

      Get the shortcut here.

      Snooze Slack 1 Hour

      Snooze your Slack notifications for 1 hour. The shortcut supports setting a different duration for Slack’s do not disturb mode and can also turn off snooze if already enabled. Requires a test API token.

      Get the shortcut here.

      WordleForever

      WordleForever lets you play the original Wordle game by Josh Wardle for as long as you want by downloading an offline copy of the HTML webpage on your device. Because Wordle is an HTML webpage with a single JavaScript file, WordleForever only needs to download these two files to keep playing the game for a few decades, completely offline.

      Get the shortcut here.


      Downloading and Using Shortcuts

      Anyone is free to download, modify, and redistribute shortcuts from the MacStories archive. Our shortcuts are provided for free and out of love for the Shortcuts automation community. In fact, we encourage readers to download shortcuts and optimize them to their needs. No attribution is necessary, but we always appreciate it.

      If you’re new to the Shortcuts app, you can find our coverage here; we also recommend going back through the Workflow archives for additional context. All of our workflows have been updated for the Shortcuts app and are included in this archive.

      For an introduction to the Shortcuts app, we highly recommend Apple’s official Shortcuts guide. We also think the Reddit community at r/shortcuts is a good place to find other users interested in Apple’s Shortcuts.

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      iOS and iPadOS 17 After One Month: It’s All About Widgets, Apps, and Stage Manager

      iOS and iPadOS 17.

      iOS and iPadOS 17.

      Apple is releasing the first public betas of iOS and iPadOS 17 today, and I’ll cut right to the chase: I’ve been using both of them on my primary devices since WWDC, and I’m very satisfied with the new features and improvements I’ve seen to date – especially on iPadOS. More importantly, both OSes are bringing back the same sense of fun and experimentation I felt three years ago with iOS 14.

      I’ve already written about the improvements to Stage Manager on the iPad ahead of the public beta of iPadOS 17. Without repeating myself, I’m still surprised by the fact that Apple addressed my core complaints about Stage Manager a mere year after iPadOS 16. To describe my past year in iPad land as “turbulent” would be a euphemism; and yet, iPadOS 17’s improved Stage Manager not only fixes the essence of what was broken last year, but even eclipses, in my opinion, the Mac version of Stage Manager at this point.

      I love using Stage Manager on my iPad now. There are still features missing from iPadOS 17 that won’t allow me to stop using my MacBook Air but, by and large, the enhancements in iPadOS 17 have allowed me to be an iPad-first user again. It feels good to write that. Plus, there are some surprises in iPadOS 17 that I wasn’t expecting that I’ll cover below.

      iOS 17 is not a huge software update: there are dozens of quality-of-life features that I like and – best of all – terrific updates on the widget front. A good way to sum up Apple’s software strategy this year is the following: widgets are everywhere now (including the Watch), they’re interactive (finally), and they’re likely pointing at new hardware on the horizon (you know). As someone who’s been wishing for widget interactivity since the days of iOS 14, I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it’s been to see third-party developers come up with wild ideas for what effectively feel like mini-apps on the Home Screen.

      I’m equally impressed by the work Apple has put into some of its built-in apps this year with features that I’ve always wanted and never thought the company would build. You can create internal links to other notes in the Notes app. Reminders has a column view. Podcasts has a proper queue. Even Reading List – of all features – has been updated this year. In using iOS 17, I sometimes get the sense that Apple went through popular wish lists from the community and decided to add all the top requests in a single release.

      To quote my friend Stephen Hackett: the vibe is good this year, and it applies to software as well. Let me tell you about some of my favorite aspects of iOS and iPadOS 17 from the past month.

      Read more