15 iPhone Shortcuts automations that make your day easier

The Shortcuts app on your iPhone can do much more than add an icon to your Home Screen. Its Automation tab runs actions on its own when something happens: you arrive home, the battery drops, an alarm goes off, you open a certain app. Set an automation up once and it keeps working in the background.

Everything below uses only what comes with iOS. The steps match recent versions of iOS (17 and later); older versions have the same actions with slightly different menus.

How to create an automation

All fifteen ideas follow the same pattern, so here it is once:

1. Open the Shortcuts app and tap Automation at the bottom.
2. Tap + (or New Automation).
3. Pick the trigger, for example Battery Level, Time of Day, Arrive, App or Charger.
4. Choose Run Immediately if you do not want to confirm it each time, and turn off Notify When Run if you do not want a banner.
5. Tap New Blank Automation and add actions with the search bar at the bottom.

Location triggers need Location Services turned on for Shortcuts, which iOS will ask for the first time.

Battery and charging

1. Low Power Mode at 30%

Trigger: Battery Level, Falls Below 30%. Action: Set Low Power Mode, On.

iOS offers Low Power Mode at 20%, which is often too late on a long day. Turning it on earlier stretches the remaining charge noticeably, and the iPhone switches it off by itself once it charges back up.

2. "Unplug me" at 80%

Trigger: Battery Level, Rises Above 80%. Action: Show Notification with the text "Battery at 80%".

Lithium batteries age faster when they sit at 100% for hours. iPhone 15 and later models have a built-in charging limit under Settings, Battery, Charging. On older models, this notification is a simple way to unplug before a full charge.

3. A sound when the charger connects

Trigger: Charger, Is Connected. Actions: Speak Text ("Charging") or Play Sound.

Useful on a nightstand cable that does not always seat properly. If you hear nothing, it is not charging.

Mornings and evenings

4. A spoken morning briefing

Trigger: Alarm, Is Stopped (choose your wake-up alarm). Actions:

1. Get Current Weather
2. Find Calendar Events where Start Date is today
3. Text: "Good morning. It is [Current Weather] today and you have [Calendar Events] on the calendar."
4. Speak Text

When you turn off the alarm, your iPhone reads out the weather and today's appointments while you get up.

5. Wind-down mode at 22:30

Trigger: Time of Day, 22:30, Daily. Actions: Set Focus (Sleep or Do Not Disturb, On), Set Appearance (Dark), Set Brightness (20%).

The phone gets quieter and dimmer at the same time every night, which makes it easier to put it down.

6. Morning reset at 7:00

Trigger: Time of Day, 7:00, weekdays. Actions: Set Focus off, Set Appearance to Light if you prefer it in daylight, Set Volume to 50%.

Pair it with automation 5 so you never wake up to a phone that is still silenced.

Places

7. "I'm home" message

Trigger: Arrive, choose your home address. Action: Send Message to a partner or family member: "Just got home."

On recent iOS versions, location automations can run without asking. On older versions, iOS shows a notification instead, and the message goes out when you tap it.

8. Travel time to the next appointment

Trigger: Leave, choose your workplace. Actions:

1. Get Travel Time to Home (choose driving or public transit)
2. Send Message: "Leaving work now, home in about [Travel Time]."

9. Car mode

Trigger: CarPlay, Connects (or Bluetooth, choose your car's Bluetooth). Actions: Set Focus to Driving, Play Music with a chosen playlist, Open App Maps.

Apps and habits

10. A speed bump for social media

Trigger: App, choose Instagram, TikTok or any app you open too often, Is Opened. Action: Show Alert with the text "Did you mean to open this?"

The alert takes one tap to dismiss, and that is the point. The small pause is often enough to notice you opened the app out of habit.

11. Auto-brightness for reading apps

Trigger: App, choose Kindle or Books, Is Opened. Action: Set Brightness to 35% and Set Appearance to Dark. Add a second automation for Is Closed that sets things back.

Manual shortcuts worth adding to the Home Screen

These are not automations. Create them in the Shortcuts tab and run them with one tap, from Siri, or with Back Tap (below).

12. Copy the text from a photo

Actions: Take Photo (or Select Photos), Extract Text from Image, Copy to Clipboard.

Point the camera at a receipt, a Wi-Fi password on a router, or a page of notes, and the text lands on your clipboard.

13. Tip and split calculator

Actions: Ask for Input (Number, "Bill total"), Ask for Input (Number, "People"), Calculate Expression with bill × 1.10 ÷ people (insert the two inputs as variables), Show Result.

Change 1.10 to whatever tip is normal where you live.

14. Make a GIF from a video

Actions: Select Photos (videos only), Make GIF, Save to Photo Album.

15. Clean up old screenshots

Actions: Find Photos where Is a Screenshot and Date Taken is not in the last 30 days, then Delete Photos.

iOS asks for confirmation before deleting, and deleted photos stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days, so a mistake is recoverable.

Run any shortcut by tapping the back of your iPhone

Go to Settings, Accessibility, Touch, Back Tap. Choose Double Tap or Triple Tap and pick any shortcut from the list. Now a double tap on the back of the phone runs it. On iPhone 15 Pro and newer models with an Action button, you can assign a shortcut there instead under Settings, Action Button.

If an automation does not run

• Check that Run Immediately is selected for that automation.
• For location triggers, make sure Shortcuts has location access under Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services.
• Open the automation and tap the play button at the bottom of the actions to test it by hand.

Want more out of your phone? Read our list of hidden iPhone features most people never find.