Getting Siri Shortcuts to the Widget

Hopefully this isn’t a repeat question (I did try a search before posting). Readdle’s Spark now supports Siri Shortcuts! Wonderful! Sometimes I need or want to compose and schedule an email, but not have to open the app and run the risk of actually reading email when I shouldn’t.

I immediately set up a simple “Compose email” shortcut (it has to be created in Spark), which activates just fine with Siri.

Here’s the catch: I prefer to launch shortcuts from the widget, not by voice. And the shortcut I created is not available to the widget.

When I try to create a custom shortcut in the Shortcuts app, there are suggested shortcuts from Spark. But all of them take the form of “Compose email to nameofpersonIoftenemail.” In short, the To: field is pre-populated, and I want it blank. There seems to be no way to edit these suggested shortcuts; it looks like I can add steps to them, but I can’t alter the steps that are already there.

Am I missing something, or is what I want to do just not possible?

To: field is pre-populated, and I want it blank.

I tried not putting an address i the To: value and it work the way you wanted.

seems to be no way to edit these suggested shortcuts

Yes, suggested shortcuts are not editable. Just like the alarms on the clock app, you can add more alarms and they will appear on the Shortcuts app but there’s no way to customize those within Shortcuts.

Many thanks!

I’m still missing something, though.

When I use the Shortcuts app to try to create a shortcut from scratch, there’s nothing from Spark available in the list of suggestions at the bottom of the screen.

I can search for Spark items, but then I get the suggestions mentioned above, which aren’t editable.

I can create what I want in Spark itself, and it works fine with voice — but then the Shortcuts app doesn’t seem to know about it, so it’s not available to the widget.

How did you get to a To: field that you could leave blank?

  1. In Spark, go to Settings > Siri & Shortcuts > Tap Compose Mail, don’t fill out anything.
  2. Tap Next > assign a phrase maybe just Compose Mail
  3. Invoke Siri and issue that phrase to make sure it runs Spark with the Compose Mail interface
  4. Go to Shortcuts and create a new shortcut
  5. In the actions list, go to Siri Suggestions, scroll until you see the Spark section, which should include Compose Mail.
  6. Add that action and run the shortcut.

If Compose Mail doesn’t show up, force close the Shortcuts app, then repeat from step 3. Sometimes it takes a few invocations before it shows up in Shortcuts

Many thanks, once again!

Force close and repeat from step 3 is the piece I was missing. I’ll try that later today.