Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:
Comfort Zone
Niléane has entered her keyboard era, Chris has a consumer warning as well as a really good macropad, and then we find the best games on the Mac.
MacStories Unwind
This week, a little Cajun cooking, behind-the-scenes of the launch of NPC XL, another great British spy drama, and a classic sci-fi deal.
Magic Rays of Light
Sigmund and Devon grade their predictions for the 97th Academy Awards, discuss the process and benefits of converting films and shows to 3D, and recap the latest Apple Immersive Video release: Deep Water Solo.
In my career as an iOS reviewer, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a response as universally positive and enthusiastic as the general public’s reception of iOS 14 last year. From the “Home Screen aesthetic” popularized by TikTokers to the incredible success of widgets and the resurgence of custom icons, few iOS updates managed to capture the cultural zeitgeist as globally and rapidly as iOS 14 did. The update broke out of the tech community and, perhaps for the first time in decades, made UI personalization a mainstream, easily attainable hobby. For once, we didn’t have to convince our friends and family to update to a major new version of the iPhone’s operating system. They just did it themselves.
The numbers don’t lie: five weeks after its release, iOS 14 was already set to surpass iOS 13’s adoption rate; in April 2021, seven months after launch, over 90% of compatible devices were running iOS 14. Which begs the obvious question: if you’re Apple, you’re planning to follow up on what made iOS 14 successful with even more of it, right?
Well, not quite.
With the world coming to a halt due to the pandemic in early 2020, Apple could have easily seized the opportunity to slow down its pace of software updates, regroup, and reassess the state of its platforms without any major changes in functionality. But, as we found out last year, that’s not how the company operates or draws its product roadmaps in advance. In the last year alone, Apple introduced a substantial macOS redesign, pointer support on iPad, and drastic changes to the iOS Home Screendespite the pandemic, executing on decisions that were likely made a year prior.
Surprisingly, iOS 15 doesn’t introduce any notable improvements to what made its predecessor wildly popular last year. In fact, as I’ll explore in this review, iOS 15 doesn’t have that single, all-encompassing feature that commands everyone’s attention such as widgets in iOS 14 or dark mode in iOS 13.
As we’ll see later in the story, new functionalities such as Focus and Live Text in the Camera are the additions that will likely push people to update their iPhones this year. And even then, I don’t think either of them sports the same intrinsic appeal as widgets, custom Home Screens, or the App Library in iOS 14.
It’s a slightly different story for iPadOS 15, which comes at a fascinating time for the platform.
As I wrote in my review of the M1 iPad Pro earlier this year, Apple needed to re-align the iPad’s hardware and software on two fronts. For pro users, the company had to prove that the new iPad Pro’s hardware could be useful for something beyond basic Split View multitasking, either in the form of more complex windowing, pro apps, or desktop-like background processes; at the same time, Apple also had to modernize iPadOS’ multitasking capabilities for all kinds of users, turning an inscrutable gesture-based multitasking environment into a more intuitive system that could also be operated from a keyboard. It’s a tall order; it’s why I’ve long believed that the iPad’s unique multiplicity of inputs makes iPadOS the toughest platform to design for.
Apple’s work in iPadOS 15 succeeds in laying a new foundation for multitasking but only partially satisfies the desires of power users. Apple managed to bring simplicity and consistency to multitasking via a new menu to manage the iPad’s windowing states that is easier to use than drag and drop. Perhaps more importantly, Apple revisited iPad multitasking so it can be equally operated using touch and keyboard. If you, the person reading these annual reviews, have ever found yourself having to explain to a family member how to create a Split View on iPad, tell them to update to iPadOS 15, and they’ll have a much easier time using their iPads to their full extent.
But after three months of running iPadOS 15 on my M1 iPad Pro, I can’t help but feel like power users will still be left wishing for more. Yes, iPadOS 15 brings extensive keyboard integration for multitasking with a plethora of new keyboard shortcuts and yes, the new multitasking menu and improvements to the app switcher benefit everyone, including power users, but iPadOS 15 is a foundational update that focuses on fixing the basics rather than letting the iPad soar to new heights.
While Apple is probably preparing bigger and bolder updates for next year, there are still plenty of features to discover and enjoy in iOS and iPadOS 15 – some that could still use some refinement, others that already feel like staples of the modern iPhone and iPad experience.
This week, Federico and John talk about the new trailer for Alto’s Odyssey: Lost City, which is coming to Apple Arcade soon, John’s review of a big update to Transloader, the Kensington StudioCaddy, plus videogame and music picks for your weekend.
In this comeback installment of the Shortcuts Corner (I took a break last spring to focus on my Modular Computer story, then WWDC happened, then…you get the idea), I’ve prepared an assortment of image-related shortcuts available for free on the MacStories Shortcuts Archive. Ever since I installed the first betas of iOS and iPadOS 14 on my iPhone and iPad months ago, I’ve been reorganizing my shortcut library with folders. Thanks to this feature, I’ve assembled a collection of simple “utility” shortcuts that I use on a daily basis, but which I never shared on MacStories. This week, I’m sharing three of these shortcuts: one to quickly get the resolution of any image; one to convert any image to JPEG while stripping metadata from it; and the last one to encode any image previously copied to the clipboard in Base64. Following the requests of several readers over the past week, I’ve also updated our popular Apple Frames shortcut with support for the iPhone SE, iPhone 12, and iPhone 12 Pro.
In the Club MacStories edition of the Shortcuts Corner this week, I’ve also created an advanced Reeder shortcut that lets you browse articles in your Read Later account by tag, title, and more. Let’s dig in.
Even with (unsurprisingly) smaller releases, Apple is pushing forward with bold ideas across all platforms.
How do you prepare a major new version of an operating system that now spans two separate platforms, which will be installed on millions of devices within a few hours of its release, amid a global pandemic? If you’re Apple, the answer is fairly straightforward: you mitigate the crisis by focusing on a narrower set of features, perhaps prioritizing bug fixes and stability improvements, but then you just have to do the work.
In my time as an iOS (then iOS andiPadOS) reviewer, I never thought I’d have to evaluate an OS update with the social andpolitical backdrop of iOS 14. Let’s face it: when the COVID-19 outbreak started fundamentally changing our lives earlier this year, at some point many of us – including yours truly – thought that, among more serious and severe repercussions, our tiny corner of the Internet would see no new phones, OS updates, videogameconsoles, or other events over the course of 2020. Or that, at the very least, changes in hardware and software would be so minor, they’d barely register in the grand scheme of things as tech companies and their employees were – rightfully so – adjusting to a new, work-from-home, socially distant life. Yet here we are, over a year after the debut of iOS and iPadOS 13, with brand new versions of both operating systems that were announced, as per tradition, at WWDC a few months ago. Remove all surrounding context, and you wouldn’t guess anything has changed from 2019.
Context is, however, key to understanding Apple’s background and goals with iOS and iPadOS 14, in a couple notable ways.
First, I think it’s safe to assume slowing down to reassess the state of the platform and focus on quality-of-life enhancements and performance gains would have worked out in Apple’s favor regardless of the pandemic. In last year’s review, I noted how the first version of iOS 13.0 launching to the public wasn’t “as polished or stable as the first version of iOS 12”; in a somewhat unpredictable twist of events, managing the iOS 13 release narrative only got more challenging for Apple after launch.
Late in the beta cycle last year, the company announced certain iOS 13 features – including automations in Shortcuts and ETA sharing in Maps – would be delayed until iOS 13.1, originally scheduled for September 30th. Following widespread criticism about bugs, various visual glitches, and stability issues in iOS 13.0, Apple moved up the release of iOS 13.1 and iPadOS (which never saw a proper 13.0 public release) by a week. Despite the release of a substantial .1 update, the company still had to ship two additional patches (13.1.1 and 13.1.2) before the end of September. Before the end of 2019, all while the general public was lamenting the poor state of iOS 13’s performance (just Google “iOS 13 buggy”, and you’ll get the idea), Apple went on to ship a total of eight software updates to iOS 13 (compared to iOS 12’s four updates before the end of 2018). The record pace, plus the mysterious removal of features that were originally announced at WWDC ‘19, suggested something had gone awry in the late stages of iOS 13’s development; it wasn’t long before a report covered Apple’s plans to overhaul its software testing methodology for iOS 14 and 2020. The pandemic may have forced Apple to scale back some functionalities and deeper design changes this year, but it’s likely that a decision had been made long before lockdowns and work-from-home orders.
Second, context is necessary because despite the pandemic and rocky rollout of iOS 13 and its many updates, Apple was still able to infuse iOS and iPadOS 14 with fresh, bold ideas that are tracing a path for both platforms to follow over the next few years.
On the surface, iOS 14 will be widely regarded as the update that brought a redesigned Home Screen and a plethora of useful quality-of-life additions to the iPhone. For the first time since the iPhone’s inception, Apple is moving past the grid of icons and letting users freely place data-rich, customizable widgets on the Home Screen – a major course correction that has opened the floodgates for new categories of utilities on the App Store. In addition to the upgraded Home Screen, iOS 14 also offers welcome improvements to long-standing limitations: phone calls can now come in as unobtrusive banners; Messages borrows some of WhatsApp’s best features and now lets you reply to specific messages as well as mention users; Siri doesn’t take over the entire screen anymore. There are hundreds of smaller additions to the system and built-in apps in iOS 14, which suggests Apple spent a long time trying to understand what wasn’t working and what customers were requesting.
iOS and iPadOS 14 aren’t just reactionary updates to criticisms and feature requests though: upon further examination, both OSes reveal underlying threads that will shape the evolution of Apple’s platforms. With compact UI, the company is revisiting a principle introduced in iOS 7 – clarity and content first – with fresh eyes: the UI is receding and becoming more glanceable, but the elements that are left are as inviting to the touch as ever – quite the departure from Jony Ive’s overly minimalistic, typography-based approach. We see this trend everywhere in iOS 14, from phone calls and Siri to widgets, new toolbar menus, and Picture in Picture. Intents, the existing technology behind SiriKit, Shortcuts, and intelligent Siri suggestions, is also at the center of widget personalization. Intents already was one of Apple’s most important frameworks given its ties to Siri and on-device intelligence; iOS 14 proves we haven’t seen all the possible permutations and applications of Intents yet.
Then, of course, there’s iPad. In iPadOS 14, we see the logical continuation of pointer and trackpad support introduced earlier this year in iPadOS 13.4: now that users can control an iPad without ever touching the screen, Apple is advising third-party developers to move away from iPhone-inspired designs with apps that are truly made for iPad…and somewhat reminiscent of their macOS counterparts. We can see the results of this initiative in modernized system apps that take advantage of the iPad’s display with a sidebar, multiple columns, and deeper trackpad integration – new options that every iPad app developer could (and, according to Apple, should) consider going forward. Although some of the iPad’s oft-mentioned ongoing struggles remain unaddressed in iPadOS 14 (see: multitasking and window management), Apple is embracing the iPad’s nature as a modular computer this year, and they feel comfortable leaning into lessons learned with the Mac decades ago.
The context of 2020 is what makes iOS and iPadOS 14 so fascinating and, to a certain extent, fun to review. On one hand, we have two major OS updates that may or may not have been impacted by the global pandemic in their focus on fewer groundbreaking additions and more consistent improvements across built-in apps; on the other, just like any other year, we have a suite of overarching themes and potential implications to dissect.
But for all those users still pausing over that ‘Install’ button, pondering whether updating their most important communication and work-from-home devices is worth it, there’s only one consideration that matters:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Given the raw transcript of a YouTube video, this shortcut uses Simon Willison’s llm CLI to pass it to Claude 3.7 Sonnet with extended thinking, which reformats the transcript and extracts key quotes from it. This shortcut can only be used on a Mac.
Given the raw transcript of a YouTube video, this shortcut uses Simon Willison’s llm CLI to pass it to Gemini 2.5 Pro, which reformats the transcript and extracts key quotes from it. This shortcut can only be used on a Mac.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Quickly append text to a note called Scratchpad in your Notes app. Audio will be recorded using Shortcuts’ native microphone access and dictation feature.
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.
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 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.
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.
Add device frames to screenshots for iPhones (8/SE, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 generations in mini/standard/Plus/Pro Max sizes), iPad Pro (11”, 12.9”, 13” 2018-2024 models), iPad Air (10.9”, 2020-2024 models), iPad mini (2021/2024 models), Apple Watch S4/5/6/7/8/9/10/Ultra, iMac (24” model, 2021/2024), MacBook Air (2020-2022 models), and MacBook Pro (2021-2024 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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>)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unless strictly necessary to communicate with a third-party web API, our shortcuts do not rely on any external framework and/or dependencies to automatically update shortcuts or perform API calls that are not mentioned in the shortcut’s description. You can find our Terms of Use below.
The archive will be regularly updated with new shortcuts over time. Updates will be shared on Twitter via the @viticci and @macstoriesnet accounts.
Terms of Use
The shortcuts in the MacStories archive have been tested as of the date each was added to MacStories.net for compatibility with the then-current versions of Apple’s iOS operating system and the Shortcuts app. Please feel free to use these shortcuts and adapt them to fit your specific needs.
However, please keep in mind that MacStories.net, its editors, and its writers (the “MacStories team”) cannot and do not guarantee that the shortcuts will remain compatible with future updates to iOS or the Shortcuts app. Moreover, the shortcuts linked on this page are provided free of charge and as-is without any express or implied warranties including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. The MacStories Team makes no specific promises about the shortcuts, the specific functions of the shortcuts, or their reliability, availability, or ability to meet your needs. In addition, the MacStories Team will not be liable to you for any lost profits or other consequential, special, indirect, or incidental damages arising out of or in connection with your use of the shortcuts.
