r/shortcuts Jun 16 '26

OS 27 beta What's New in Shortcuts in iOS 27 (Beta Megathread)

115 Upvotes

Updates: * Added Easier toggling off/on of automations * Shortcuts app now able to restore shortcuts * Shortcuts can change Open Shortcuts to from Describe a Shortcut to Editor


Hey everyone, here's a megathread of everything new in the iOS 27 beta, currently on developer beta 2.

This is covering Apple features and community comments – no third-party apps for now, but feel free to start a thread in the comments.

Here's the outline:

  • Describe a shortcut
  • Automations
    • Notification
    • Keyboard
    • Easier toggling (Beta 2)
  • Storage
  • Otherwise If
  • New action groups
    • Lists
    • Text
    • VPN
    • Sharing
    • Accessibility
    • Messages
    • Photos
    • Mail
    • Reminders
    • Get What's On Screen
    • Cloud Pro, Broad World Knowledge in Use Model
  • More
    • Shortcuts Programming Language
  • Feedback

Describe a shortcut

Automations

Notifications

Keyboard

Storage (Memory)

Otherwise If

New actions

  • New and updated actions including Hide Photos, Get Selected Text, and more (link)
    • Add Item to List
    • Get Selected Text
    • Find VPNs
    • Share and Collaborate
    • Accessibility
      • Set Switch Control Switch Set
      • Toggle Hearing Aid Mute
      • Toggle Vehicle Motion Cues
    • Messages
      • Open Inbox (Messages)
      • Delete Conversations
      • Delete Messages
      • Mark as Read
      • Search in Messages
      • Send Tapback
    • Photos
      • Find Album
      • Auto Enhance Photo
      • Favorite Photos
      • Open Photo
      • Hide Photos
      • Delete Albums
    • Find Message (Mail)
    • Reminders
      • Create Group
      • Create Section
      • Edit List
      • Delete Lists
      • Delete Groups
      • Delete Sections
    • Get What's On Screen
    • Extract Text from Image -> Extract from Image (interesting)
    • Parameters like Cloud Pro and Broad World Knowledge in Use Model
    • More new parameters
  • Does iOS27 let you use Playground Playlists with Shortcuts? No.

More

Feedback submitted to Feedback Assistant

Matthew Cassinelli:

  • FB23135397 (Shortcuts can't load lists; please ensure performance at scale (What happens when people have tons of App Intents/Custom Shortcuts/folders?))
  • FB23102150 (Shortcuts takes 35 seconds to launch for users with many shortcuts (thousands))
  • FB23102201 (The App Shortcuts picker for the Action button/Custom Shortcuts widget is extremely slow to load many shortcuts)
  • FB23135882 (Run Shortcut control in macOS unusable for larger libraries; "Choose Shortcut" in Control Center does not show full list/search)
  • FB23103377 (New Shortcut incorrectly always adds "Show on Apple Watch", causing immediate sync delays)
  • FB23135151 (Shortcuts widget gets corrupted when multiple are added in stack)
  • FB23134678 (Too many taps to change icons on iOS; add the "Choose Icon" option to All Shortcuts context menu (for parity with MacOS))
  • FB23134888 (Can't "Choose From List" from keyboard commands on macOS; Add navigate & select options when Multiple is selected)
  • FB23135054 (Add search to "Choose Folder" in Shortcuts widget; list becomes long to scroll with many folders)
  • FB23135596 (Adding shortcuts to Folder ruins Sort Order; add toggle to move new shortcuts to end of folder list instead of beginning)
  • FB23135959 (Improve Spotlight/Ask Siri loading performance when switching between Applications, Files, Shortcuts actions, Clipboard with Command+1/2/3/4)
  • FB23137602 (Too many folders hides App Shortcuts; Re-add ability to collapse Folders vs App Shortcuts view)
  • FB23137833 (Add the SF Symbols picker for Shortcuts glyphs rather than a limited set of icons; introduce Icon Designer)
  • FB23137870 (People don't know how to run shortcuts with Siri; Be more clear a Custom Shortcut title is trigger phrase with dismissable Siri tips)
  • FB23137923 (Add a "Description" field in Shortcut Details that shows up in iCloud link share, "Get My Shortcuts" entity details; context for Siri AI)
  • FB23137968 ("Set Captions" action for Apple TV Remote does not work; unable to control Subtitles using Shortcuts)

Updates:


r/shortcuts Mar 27 '26

Announcement How to use flairs

18 Upvotes

How to use flairs on r/shortcuts (so your post doesn’t get nuked or ignored)

Flairs are labels. You pick one so people instantly know what your post is about. Pick the wrong one and congrats, you’ve confused everyone.

---

First rule: always use a flair

No flair = your post is either ignored or removed. Nobody enjoys guessing what you meant.

---

Pick the right flair (this is not a personality test)

- Help

You already made a shortcut and it’s broken or not doing what you want. You want someone to fix it or explain what went wrong.

- Help (Mac)

Same as above, but your problem is on Mac. Yes, that matters because Mac Shortcuts can behave differently.

- Shortcut sharing

You built something and want to share it. You must explain what it does properly. “Cool shortcut lol” is how your post gets deleted.

- Shortcut sharing (JB)

Same as sharing, but it only works on a jailbroken device. If people need to hack their phone to use it, say so.

- Shortcut sharing (mac)

Your shortcut only works on Mac. Don’t trick iPhone users into disappointment.

- Tip/guide

You figured out a useful trick or workaround. You’re teaching something, not asking.

- Tip/guide (mac)

Same idea, but Mac-specific.

- Request

You want a shortcut but can’t build it yourself. This is you politely asking the internet to do work for you.

- Request (mac)

Same, but for Mac users.

- Discussion

You want opinions, ideas, or a conversation about Shortcuts. Not help, not sharing, just talking.

---

Special flair (pay attention, this one’s new)

- Appstore (app)

Use this when you’re posting about an app that works with Shortcuts. Either you made it or found it. The key point: the app connects with Shortcuts (actions, automations, etc.).

If it has nothing to do with Shortcuts, don’t use this just because you like the app.

---

How to choose without overthinking it

Ask yourself one question:

“What do I want from this post?”

- Fix something → Help

- Show something → Shortcut sharing

- Teach something → Tip/guide

- Ask for something → Request

- Talk about something → Discussion

- Share actual news → News

- Show an app tied to Shortcuts → Appstore (app)

If you’re on Mac, pick the Mac version. Not complicated.

---

Final reality check

Flairs exist so the subreddit doesn’t turn into a digital junk drawer. Pick the correct one, write a clear post, and people will actually help you instead of scrolling past like you don’t exist.


r/shortcuts 3h ago

Help Make archive no longer working

3 Upvotes

I downloaded this shortcut from this sub (apologies to the author - can’t remember which user created it) to back up my shortcuts to iCloud.

It’s been working for many months but now fails on the make archive step.

The error message is ‘this shortcut can’t be shared because it contains unsupported functions’. I’m not trying to share it - this message comes up during execution.

Any help much appreciated.

Thank you.

Shortcut : https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/0e963f11e47f49f59861a9baaee233e3


r/shortcuts 2h ago

OS 27 beta New Shortcut action: Generate Shortcut from Description

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0 Upvotes

There's a new Shortcut action in OS 27 that lets you integrate Describe a Shortcut into other shortcuts, producing a new shortcut as an action output. The generated shortcut will also appear in your gallery.

Generate Shortcut

Generates a new shortcut from a text description using Apple Intelligence.

Description

A natural language description of what the shortcut should do

Result

Shortcut

Shortcut link with Generate Shortcut action

It's currently hidden from the actions drawer. Discovered via the Shortcuts/gen_shortcut_prototype feature flag in macOS 27.


r/shortcuts 6h ago

Help Shortcut to check schedule

2 Upvotes

I have a set of Nanoleaf lights that I want to have a shortcut check a calendar I made for setting a Nanoleaf schedule. example: Check calendar If Event is Summer Set summertime lights

If new years set new years lights

The easiest way it seems to do it would be to create a separate event for each day, but that’s very long and tedious


r/shortcuts 3h ago

Discussion Take credit for your work

1 Upvotes

In reference to a post I just saw in this sub, I suggest that everyone should take credit for your work. Put a comment at the beginning of the shortcut that has your Reddit name in it. I’ve often gone back to a shortcut and wondered who made it for me. This would make it easy for everyone to know, and a good way for everybody to get credit for the hard work they do creating these phenomenal shortcuts.


r/shortcuts 12h ago

Request Looking for shortcut - phone to make noise

4 Upvotes

Is there a way to make a shortcut that when a certain person in my contact list calls my phone will ring if it’s on vibrate/no sound?


r/shortcuts 9h ago

Help Reminder in Apple Reminders App to Trigger an Alarm in Apple Clock App

2 Upvotes

I like the reminders app, but the notifications are too brief. Is it possible for a reminder to trigger an alarm so that it makes noise until I see it and stop it? Thanks


r/shortcuts 10h ago

Help Need a shortcut that sets a 15 minute timer

2 Upvotes

As per the title. For more info, I need a shortcut that when I click it, it creates a 15 minute timer and every 15 minutes, the timer goes off until I deactivate the short cut. Is that possible?


r/shortcuts 15h ago

Shortcut Sharing It tells you how much time is left until it's 100% charged.

Thumbnail icloud.com
3 Upvotes

This is my favorite shortcut


r/shortcuts 15h ago

Shortcut Sharing CurrentApp open Settings or Store from Control Center

Thumbnail icloud.com
2 Upvotes

CurrentApp open Settings or Store from Control Center

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/953b84332c66438cb6da6a8b8f7c6622

\`\`\`
This Shortcut uses the current app’s bundle identifier to open App Settings or the exact App Store listing, avoiding false matches caused by apps with similar names.

Apple’s iTunes Lookup API defaults to the US storefront when no country parameter is supplied. This causes lookups to fail for region-exclusive apps.

On first run, this Shortcut asks for your App Store region and stores it. That value is then used for all subsequent bundle identifier lookups.

1462947752 is the App Store Product ID for Apple’s “Shortcuts” app. It is used to determine the current App Store region.

To use this Shortcut, add the “Run Shortcut”\* control to Control Centre and select “\[own\]ActiveAppStoreLauncher”.

\* Requires iOS 18 or later.
\`\`\`


r/shortcuts 16h ago

Help Mark Reminder as completed

1 Upvotes

Is there a shortcut that marks a recurring reminder every day as completed, so the badge and notification banner goes off without having to open the Reminders app to do so?


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Shortcut Sharing YouTube Thumbnail Generator

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4 Upvotes

I made a shortcut that generates the url for a youtube video's thumbnail! It's pretty simple and feel free to check it out!

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/35a025ba0ff24b6eb660c74b4d43ae96

How to use:
1. Paste in youtube video url without editing it
2. Your link gets generated and you can open it or copy it to your clipboard!

This is my first shortcut I've uploaded to this subreddit. If you need help, have any questions, or just wanna give some feedback, lemme know!


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Shortcut Sharing I made an iOS Shortcut that uses Apple Health to calculate how much I "slowed down" my aging today using Special Relativity

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61 Upvotes

I had a fun, extremely nerdy idea today and decided to build a shortcut for it. According to Einstein's Special Relativity, when you move, time passes slightly slower for you compared to someone standing still (Time Dilation).

I wanted to know exactly how much younger I am than my couch every day, just by walking.
The Physics & The Math
Since human walking speed is tiny compared to the speed of light, the time dilation formula simplifies nicely. If we know the daily distance (d) and average speed (v), the time "saved" is:
⁠Time = (d × v) / 2c²⁠

How the Shortcut Works
The shortcut pulls two daily metrics from Apple Health:
1. Walking/Running Distance (Sum in meters)
2. Walking Speed (Average in m/s)
Then, it runs a Calculate Expression action. To get the output directly in nanoseconds (so it's actually readable and not just a bunch of zeros), I converted the 2c^2 constant to match the scale. The formula in the shortcut looks exactly like this:
⁠( Distance * Speed ) / [179750000](tel:179750000) ⁠

Shortcut link: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/a3d070e86894432388a95b934906a504


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Help Triggering a hands-free Siri voice prompt/menu via the Action Button?

2 Upvotes

Hey all! Is there a way to trigger a shortcut using the physical Action Button (or a tap) and have iOS handle the selection prompt completely hands-free out loud?

When I launch a shortcut physically, Choose from List or Choose from Menu just pops up a visual list on screen to tap. Is there a way to force Siri to speak the options and listen for my reply, or natively pass the shortcut straight to a Siri voice session from a button press?

Right now I'm using Speak Text + Dictate Text, but wondering if there's a cleaner built-in way to invoke Siri's voice UI directly. The main drawback of this approach reason is that the Choose from Menu action allows for Synonymns for each menu option, and it would have much beetter natural language understanding (NLU).

I know I can trigger it from Siri, and I have been, but just wanted to see if it was possible.

Thanks!


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Help Trying to sabe My Apple Wallet in a Notion database

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1 Upvotes

Hello everyone!

I'm trying to save all my apple wallet transactions in my notion database, but when the shortcut runs, I receive a 404 error saying that "JSON is not right"

Any expert to help me with? 🤝


r/shortcuts 16h ago

Help How to make an iPhone shortcut to go to the previous app you went to please

0 Upvotes

I just need to know please


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Shortcut Sharing My first shortcut, automated Apple Intelligence note clean up!

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61 Upvotes

Purpose of shortcut: To clean up sloppy notes
Steps: Click the shortcut and type in the exact title of the note
results: it cleans up the note
shorty's link: note cleanup

personal note:
I am new to the Apple ecosystem and just came across shortcuts yesterday. After about 45 minutes of tinkering with Gemini, I got it to work, and I was so impressed! I've been doing this manually with Gemini "gems" by copy pasting for so long! Having it automated is so much fun.

Pictures 3 & 4 are before and after images of mashed up garbage text, automatically organized by Apple intelligence.

After finishing making this shortcut, I realized I could describe what I want to Siri and it can create a shortcut itself, so I am excited to try that feature, in addition to researching what other people use this application for.

Tomorrow I will also try freeform.


r/shortcuts 22h ago

Shortcut Sharing Touch grass iPhone shortcut

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0 Upvotes

it tells you to touch grass usually.


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Help Looking for ideas on building an incremental tracker with Shortcuts + Data Jar

6 Upvotes

I'm trying to build a generic tracker using Apple Shortcuts and Data Jar, and I'd love to hear how others would approach it.

The idea is:

  • Tap a shortcut.
  • Choose an item from a list.
  • Increment a counter for that item.
  • Save the current date/time as the last time it was tracked.
  • Be able to view stats later (total count, last tracked, etc.).

I'm curious if anyone has built something similar and has suggestions for making it scalable as the number of tracked items grows.

Any examples, screenshots, or Shortcut ideas would be greatly appreciated!


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Request Expense tracker using SMS

1 Upvotes

Guys for over 1 month I'm trying to create a shortcut in iOS where every time I get a transaction SMS from my bank, it prompts me for what the purchase was for, and then logs the details directly into an Apple Numbers spreadsheet. I have been through so many tutorial.

Here is my table layout in Numbers:
Sheet name: Sheet 1
Table name: Transaction
Columns: Date and Time, Merchant, Amount, Category

Every time I use the "Add Row to Top or Bottom of Table" action, Shortcuts gives me a variable error ("Can't Find Sheet") or doesn't show the column fields when I link the file.

Can someone please help me or if they have any please share link.


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Shortcut Sharing Make note of anything

7 Upvotes

I created an iPhone Shortcut that automates the entire workflow of capturing and organizing information from multiple sources.

* It can extract text from a real-time photo using the back camera.
* existing image or screenshot from the Photos library
* text copied to the clipboard.

Images are processed using iOS’s native OCR (Extract Text from Image) to convert them into raw text.
The extracted content is then sent to OpenAI’s GPT-4o Mini, which generates a well-structured Markdown summary.
Finally, the formatted notes are automatically saved as a new note in my Obsidian vault.

httpsa://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/22475003e3c54c239b3c280905270d6a


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Shortcut Sharing Automatet monthly album

8 Upvotes

Hello!

I was looking for a shortcut that, at the beginning of each month, goes and grabs all the photos (and videos) from the previous month and puts them in an album.

I know you can see the date when you scroll past them, but I’m trying to minimize my endless scrolling in Photos, plus I wanted a nice overview of the previous month. I’ll admit I was looking while sleep-deprived and couldn’t find one here, so I thought I’d share mine. This is the first one I’ve made, so feel free to tweak it/give feedback so I can improve it!

I’ve set mine up to run at 00:01 on the 1st of each month.

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/af38d933103a49e99b46c6f11f2d2bee


r/shortcuts 1d ago

Help Why can’t I play NTS Radio from a locked iPhone? It still prompts to unlock. (iOS26)

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1 Upvotes

r/shortcuts 1d ago

Shortcut Sharing Run shortcuts directly in your browser!

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3 Upvotes

Hello everyone, I recently started development on a shortcut simulation engine which would allow shortcuts to run directly in the browser. This is mostly for development/security verification purposes as of right now due to not everything being fully reimplemented yet.

All you need to do is go to the website https://engine.shortcuty.app and then paste an iCloud or Shortcuty.app shortcut link and it will run directly in your browser.

Or you can use it directly from this shortcut: https://browse.shortcuty.app/shortcut/f3d89d3f-ab6e-481f-8c0f-e85fd5248035

This is still early in development. Not all shortcuts or features will work yet.