Share your top 5 iOS Shortcuts

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I’m curious to know what everyone’s favorite iOS Shortcuts are and how you’re using them. Trying to get into some iOS automation so would love to hear your top 5 Shortcuts and what you use them for.

Mine:

  • Quick Look (shows list of Notes, Settings, Files)
  • Toggle AirPods (connects, disconnects AirPods)
  • Play Dark Noise specific sounds
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When battery level falls below 30% or 40% and when battery level rises above 70% or 80%, the iPhone reports this to me verbally. Also, at 40%, low power mode is turned on.

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My top Shortcuts are:

  1. Open tasks in Things with the Errand tag
  2. Open tasks in Things with the Consider tag (my top tasks for the week)
  3. Create time block in Calendar with link to Project in Things
  4. On Mac I have a shortcut that opens 8 tabs in Safari that I use all the time. I thought about using tab groups, but that will remember all the tabs you open or close. This shortcut allows me to reset back to the 8 most important websites I use for work.
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Slightly tangential, but I like how you can use the Shortcuts widgets to easily set up and have access to the same Shortcuts across different devices. I use more than one iPad, but the home screens are basically the same: just Shortcuts widgets pointing to the same folders within the Shortcuts app, so if I make changes on one device, it’s reflected on the other devices as well. These folders/widgets are also good for grouping Shortcuts contextually.

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  1. Create tomorrow’s daily note in Obsidian with location/weather information summary of appointments, and section for ongoing notes

  2. Log time to daily note in Obsidian when I leave or arrive at home or the office

  3. Appendix completed tasks from Things to today’s daily note and archive same

All of these are automations that require no input or confirmation from me. I’ve also duplicated them to run in Drafts in case I decide to move my daily notes there.

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  • Get data from a CGM app
  • Choose a text file and create an OF project
  • Show my errands list in OF
  • A couple buttons to show certain text files
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  1. “Hey Siri, When am I free?” and then it asks me for a date. Then it puts all the 30 minute intervals I’m free between 8a and 5p on the clipboard.
  2. Logs when I drive, the miles driven and time it took. All this is stored in a text file. Uses the connection/disconnection to the car’s bluetooth to initiate this.
  3. I’ve since switched to the Weather wallpaper but I had written shortcuts that would pull random images from NASA Astronomy Pic of the Day, the Art Institute or Unsplash to use as my wall paper.
  4. “Hey Siri, take a note” will take a voice dictated note and put it in a new (or append an existing) Things task with today’s date. THings is my one inbox.
  5. If I get a list of dates and times I need to add to my calendar, shortcuts will do it for me.

I :heart: shortcuts, though, some of the functions are not the easiest to discover.

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I have a “This Week” tag that seems the same as your “Consider.”

That’s a good idea. I’ll bet that helps create a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.

I’d love to hear more about how you (and others) use Things. Maybe we need a separate thread. However, between the new actions and the URL functions, you can do a lot with Things and Shortcuts.

(Same with Obsidian and its URL functions).

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I have a shortcut that strips formatting from text. So, I have a “paste without formatting” tool. I think it was @Denny who gave it to me. I use it multiple times a day almost every day.

I have a shortcut that batch renames files. I use that one a lot, too. It was cool because this one was an Automator script(?) that I was able to convert to Shortcuts.

I created a shortcut that lets me send notes to the Scrivener scratchpad from my phone or iPad.

I have a few shortcuts that let me run a search query on a specific website (e.g., the state bar of California’s attorney search; and urban dictionary (now that I’m getting older, I especially need that one)).

I have shortcuts that enable me to have a custom “crm” system.

I love Shortcuts, and feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of what they can do. Yet, even these little things, make a huge difference.

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Is this on macOS or iOS? If iOS, mind sharing it?

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Copy Text Shortcut

@iPersuade, glad it’s come in handy!

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I don’t use Shortcuts much, if at all, but I created one last week for meditation. When I execute it, it starts a 10 minute timer, puts on ambient rain sounds, and airplays it to my HomePod.

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One of my most frequently used Shortcuts grab the show notes from the currently playing podcast in Overcast and sends it to Instapaper so I can peruse all the interesting links later.

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Could you please post the shortcut to send notes to the Scrivener scratchpad from your iPad or iPhone? That would be really helpful.

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Most commonly used:

  • convert clipboard text to plain text and remove extra line breaks
  • prompt for calendar events of various types (doctor, haircut, etc.). I input time and date, and it puts it on my personal calendar, puts a hold on my work calendar, and sets the details including location.
  • various daily note shortcuts to create and append to my daily note (kept in DEVONthink)
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  1. Silence Unknown Callers and also Stop Silencing Unknown Callers
  2. Remind me (quick access to Due instead of Reminders)