Jackson Dame shared how he uses iOS shortcuts and an Apple Watch for lifelogging. I experimented with lifelogging back in 2014-2015, but I gave up after a while. Shortcuts would’ve made it a whole lot easier. Mr. Dame shares a list of all of the data he collects and what tools he uses to collect it, like Data Jar (love this app), Timelines, iA Writer, Charity, Microsoft Excel, and more.
How to Find and Copy File Paths in iOS Using the Files App
Using file paths in certain shortcut actions helps you automate your file workflows. But did you know you can copy file paths in iOS?
The ‘Oakstack’ Shortcut Gives You Cityscape Wallpapers
OAKSTACK is a Shortcut that generates randomized iPhone/iPad wallpapers from a library of industrial cityscape images. With Automations in iOS 14.3 you can have a new wallpaper automatically generated on your own schedule. It costs US$4 to download it but the proceeds will go towards local initiatives to help the homeless.
Share Nintendo Switch Screenshots With ‘SwitchDrop’ Shortcut
The most recent update for the Nintendo Switch gave players the ability to share game screenshots and videos directly to their smartphone. Previously, the only option was to share it on social media, then download it from another device. The SwitchDrop shortcut automates the sharing. As u/Bostonlbi wrote on Reddit, “Now after hitting share on the Switch, you just scan the 1st QR code, run the shortcut and you’re done. If you want to save even more time, you can set it to run as an automation when connecting to the Switch’s wifi Network.“
iconOS, the Website for Custom App Icons
iconOS is a website that offers custom app icons for people so they can customize their iPhones and iPads using the Shortcuts app. There are a variety of style packs to purchase, like 3D Caramel, NEUM, MONOS Blue, Icos, and Traf Icons. Different packs are different prices, so browse to find the one you like.
This Shortcut Lets You Download Podcasts
The Podcasts app lets you save podcast episodes to listen later or to archive them, but they remain within the app. What if you want to download podcasts and save them elsewhere, like the Files app? This shortcut lets you do that. I’ve only used it once so far but it worked like a charm. It’s a nice way to archive episodes that you find particularly interesting.
The Shazam++ Shortcut Improves Your Music Recognition
Shazam++ is a shortcut that helps you take action after you use Shazam to identify a song. Use the shortcut to automatically get the link on your favorite music streaming website, and use features like lyric service, album and artist information, see your recent Shazams, and more.
NOW w/ IOS 14 Support, Beautiful Menus and Shazam History!
Scriptable 1.6 Update Adds a Gallery of User Scripts
Scriptable is an app that lets you write scripts in JavaScript to automate parts of iOS. Think of it as a more powerful version of Shortcuts. Scriptable 1.6 adds an oft-requested gallery that lets users upload and share scripts. Other additions include: Create dynamic colors with the Color.dynamic(lightColor, darkColor) function. These colors automatically adjust to match the system appearance and work great with widgets; The LinearGradient have new startPoint and endPoint properties to control the direction of the gradient; FileManger has a new cacheDirectory() function to get the path to the directory suitable for caching data; and much more.
Use This Shortcut for Real and Fake Art in Animal Crossing
Redd is a character in Animal Crossing: New Horizons that runs the Treasure Trawler. He visits your island every so often to sell you paintings and statues for your art museum. However, sometimes the art is counterfeit, and this shortcut can help. It uses Polygon’s art guide but since it’s a shortcut you won’t have to browse through a long article.
iOS 14: How to Copy and Paste Actions in Shortcuts
iOS 14 brought many improvements to the Shortcuts app, including a way to copy and paste actions and duplicate them.
Here’s How to Replace the iOS 13 Favorites Widget on iOS 14
We all know how much I like shortcuts, and Juli Clover came up with a clever way to replace the iOS 13 Favorites widget that was removed in iOS 14.
Why the Favorites widget was removed is a mystery and it could be a simple oversight with Apple planning to reintroduce it later, but for now, those who relied on the widget can recreate its functionality with Shortcuts. It takes some effort, but it may be worth the time investment if you often relied on your Favorites.
As my image above suggests, it’s only the widget that was removed. You can still add favorites in the Phone and Contacts apps.
Quickly Access iCloud Keychain With This Apple Engineer’s Shortcut
Ricky Mondello works on app and website authentication as well as password management at Apple. They recently created a shortcut that lets you quickly access iCloud Keychain, so instead of opening Settings and scrolling down to tap on Passwords, it’s a one-tap method to directly open the Passwords section. Separately from that, this is also something you can do yourself using the Settings Shortcut Generator. You can quickly jump to a variety of different places within Settings. One that I recently created is jumping to Settings > Privacy > Photos to manage app access to photos.
iOS 14: Create Background Automations That Don’t Need Your Input
A welcome change in iOS 14 users involves Shortcuts. It’s now possible for certain automations to run entirely in the background.
iOS 14 Features, Updates – TMO Daily Observations 2020-09-17
Andrew Orr and Bryan Chaffin join host Kelly Guimont to discuss the iPad/iOS 14 release, and the biggest updates and changes to your devices.
‘Data Jar’ is the Perfect App for Shortcut Dictionaries
Data Jar is a great app I discovered a while back and weirdly haven’t written about yet. This app helped me unlock my automations that require dictionaries. Data Jar lets you store key-value pairs and let them persist outside of Shortcuts. While I was trying to build a dictionary into my Shortcuts, I found that they couldn’t be updated using native actions; the data had to be stored elsewhere. The app lets you store text, numbers, Booleans, lists, dictionaries, and files. It’s free with an optional tip jar to support the developer Simon B. Støvring.
This ‘Clear Clipboard’ Shortcut Empties Your Clipboard Automatically
Redditor u/SpamSencer created a Clear Clipboard shortcut that does exactly what the name says: It automatically clears your clipboard. With iOS 14 Apple introduced a feature that shows when an app accesses the clipboard, like TikTok and Microsoft. You could even set it up as an automation so that whenever you open any app of your choosing, the shortcut will run (an iOS 14 feature). You’ll just have to painstakingly tap on every app you have installed if you choose to automate it.
Batch Rename Files on iOS Using This Shortcut
One task that was always easier on macOS was to rename multiple files at once using Automator. The Files app on iOS/iPadOS doesn’t have a lot of bulk actions. But I finally cracked it with Shortcuts to let you batch rename files on iOS and iPadOS. My shortcut lets you do three specific things: prepend text, append text, and replace text in a file name. If I think of more things to do with file names in the future, I’ll update the shortcut.
These 5 Shortcuts Help Me Automate My Digital Life
Andrew uses these five shortcuts nearly every day to help him automate his digital life, like a web clipper for Apple Notes.
‘SW-DL’ Shortcut Brings YouTube-DL to iOS
YouTube-dl is a command line tool that lets you download videos from websites, although it’s commonly used for YouTube as the name suggests. With a-shell, a terminal emulator I covered, it’s possible to install the downloader on your iPad and iPhone. Someone also created a shortcut for youtube-dl (Reddit post here, shortcut link below). Note that it currently crashes on the iOS/iPadOS 14 betas. It’s possible to install youtube-dl in a-shell with the command “pip install youtube-dl.” Since I’m running the betas, I’m going to tinker with using a-shell.
Turn Your Shortcuts Into Widgets With ‘MFC Deck’
From the creator of popular Shortcuts app “LaunchCuts” comes a new tool called MFC Deck. It turns your shortcuts into widgets displayed on a dynamic control deck. These widgets can display different information depending on context, just like a real widget. There are plenty of actions these widgets can do, like running multiple actions from a single NFC tag, rate limiting, triggers, and more. They live on your Apple Watch, in Siri voice responses, and in iOS 14 Home Screen widgets. MFC deck is currently open for TestFlight beta, so it’s not ready for actual release yet. If these features sound interesting then sign up today.
