Take Control of
Shortcuts

Apple’s Shortcuts app brings extensive automation capabilities to your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, using a drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blanks interface much like Automator—but much more powerful. It lets you perform sequences of tasks, including ones that span various apps, with just a tap, a click, or a voice command—or even automatically when certain conditions are met. Shortcuts can save you time and effort, help you accomplish previously complicated tasks, and let you customize your device to better meet your needs. Apple finally brought Shortcuts to the Mac in macOS 12 Monterey. (The book now includes coverage of macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16; Shortcuts remained pretty much the same in macOS Sonoma, iOS 17, and iPadOS 17.)

But for all its utility, Shortcuts is not self-explanatory, so it can be challenging to figure out its quirks and create effective, time-saving automations. That’s where Take Control of Shortcuts comes in. Written by automation expert Rosemary Orchard, this book opens the world of automation to users at every level.

Which book(s) should you buy? We have another book that addresses Mac automation: Take Control of Automating Your Mac. Which should you get? This book, Take Control of Shortcuts, is only about Shortcuts, though it goes into 174 pages of detail about just that one app—and it covers Shortcuts in iOS/iPadOS as well as macOS. By contrast, Take Control of Automating Your Mac is an extensive overview of dozens of different ways to automate activities on your Mac, including AppleScript, Automator, macro utilities, keyboard shortcuts, and much more. It features about 15 pages of introductory material on Shortcuts. So, if you’re interested only in Shortcuts (and want coverage of iOS/iPadOS), get this book; if you want to learn about many ways to automate your Mac, get the Automating book. Better yet, buy both and get the complete story!

With Rosemary’s help, you’ll learn how to:

• Navigate the Shortcuts app: Understand the user interface (on each platform) and terminology, then install and run your first shortcut.
• Run shortcuts: Discover many different ways to run a shortcut, from tapping or clicking an icon to using Personal or Home automations, Siri, and Apple Watch.
• Build shortcuts: Start with simple, one-step shortcuts and work your way up to complex shortcuts with input, output, variables, conditionals, loops, and more. Debugging advice is also included.
• Install and sync shortcuts: Download and install shortcuts others have written, sync your shortcuts across your devices, and share them with other people.

Then, to both illustrate the main principles you’ve learned and give you practical tools to get you started, Rosemary walks you step by step through the creation of 25 sample shortcuts, most which you can also download and install using links in the book. Examples include:

• Event templates
• A daily overview
• Converting and sharing images
• Adding a song to a playlist
• Logging expenses
• Turning on lights automatically when you get home
• Disabling rotation lock just for YouTube on an iPhone
• Reminding you about upcoming deadlines 15 minutes after you arrive home
• Automatically setting seasonal scenes for HomeKit lights

The book also discusses how Shortcuts can use REST APIs to talk to various web services (with detailed examples), and numerous complementary apps that work in conjunction with Shortcuts.

Whether you’re completely new to automation or already have significant programming experience, you’ll find plenty of useful information in this friendly, practical guide.

About Rosemary Orchard

Rosemary Orchard is the cohost of Automators, an automation-themed podcast on Relay FM with David Sparks, and iOS Today, a podcast about learning and making the most of your non-Mac Apple devices with a Shortcuts section every week on TWiT with Mikah Sargent.

When she isn’t writing, she’s busy eating chocolate and planning world domination with Shortcuts.