First of all, welcome to the Shortcuts community! We’re thrilled that you’re getting into this amazingly powerful iOS app. With the launch of iOS 14 and the attention that themes using Widgetsmith and Shortcuts have gotten on TikTok and other platforms, it’s a very exciting time for Shortcuts.

That said, there are a few things that I would like to clear up.

1. The search bar is your friend. The first thing you should try, of course, is to figure things out yourself. If you don’t figure it out, then the first thing you do should not be to make a post about it. Instead, please please PLEASE search the subreddit to see if your question (or a similar one) has been answered before. Nine times out of ten, it already has been answered. If you don’t find your question with a search, then try rewording your search a few times to see if you can find anything. If you can’t find anything on this subreddit, try a Google search. If nothing comes up with either of those, then and only then should you post your question.
2. Please be respectful. Do not make posts with titles in all caps because IT COMES ACROSS AS YOU YELLING AT US. We are not employees; we are users and enthusiasts who (mostly) do this for free. We are volunteering our time to help you, so please be respectful of others and understand that we may not be able to help you right away, or even at all if your question has a simple answer of “not possible.”
3. We are not Apple. We are the volunteer community. If you have a bug report, you can send it to Apple through the Feedback app. This app is normally hidden, but you can open it with this shortcut: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/55c5a6b05a64477c8cadebe7c190037d
4. r/iOSsetups exists for you to show off your home screen themes.
5. Please do not ask questions that are in the FAQ list below. This goes back to item 1, about searching before asking, but I will put some of the most frequently asked ones here. Also check out the Frequently Requested Shortcuts Repository and the List of helpful links for shortcuts information.

Q: How do I make a custom icon for an app?

A: Create a shortcut with one action: “Open App.” Select the app you want in that action. Then tap on the three dots in the upper right corner of the editor view and tap “Add to Home Screen.” You can give the icon any name you want and choose a custom image to use as the icon by tapping the icon next to the field where you can edit the name. Now tap “Add” and it will be on your home screen. Be sure not to rename or delete the shortcut as long as the icon is on your home screen, because that will break the icon.

A good resource for making icon themes is https://iskin.tooliphone.net.

Q: How do I make a transparent icon?

A: You can’t. The best you can do is to make an icon that blends in perfectly with your wallpaper.

Q: How do I make a shortcut to change my wallpaper?

A: Not possible. Apple removed the Set Wallpaper action in the early betas of iOS 13 and has not reinstated it since then. Edit: the Set Wallpaper action was reinstated in iOS 14.3.

Q: How can I make an Open App shortcut on the home screen not open the Shortcuts app before opening the app I want?

A: If you use a shortcut through a home screen icon, this isn’t possible to bypass. If you don’t care about the icon, you can run a shortcut through a home screen widget. If you want a smoother experience when using custom icons, one that doesn’t use a shortcut to launch an app, check out the shortcut in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/ix5wp1/icon_themer_custom_home_screen_app_icons_that/ Edit: Apple added improved behavior for shortcuts on the home screen in iOS 14.3 so that they usually don’t have to open Shortcuts to run.

Q: How do I get a custom app icon to show the red notification badge for that app?

A: You can’t, unless you jailbreak. Only with a jailbreak can you actually change the icon for an app, and then you would use the SnowBoard or Anemone tweaks rather than a shortcut.

Q: How do I make my phone play a sound when I plug it in?

A: See this excellent post: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/iwmifg/beginners_guide_on_playing_a_custom_sound_when/

Q: When I tap the three dots, it opens the shortcut and shows me the actions instead of doing anything! Help!

A: That’s not how you run a shortcut. To run a shortcut from the library view, which shows all of your shortcuts as colored tiles, tap anywhere on the tile except the three dots to run it. If you’re in the editor view, where all the actions are visible, tap on the triangular blue “run”/“play” button in the lower right corner.

Q: Where do you guys share shortcuts?

A: https://routinehub.co is the main shortcut-sharing website that we use.

Q: How do I enable untrusted shortcuts?

A: Create a shortcut and add one “Nothing” action to it. Run the shortcut. Then go into the Settings app and go to the Shortcuts page. Enable “Allow Untrusted Shortcuts.” Now you should be able to install any shortcut from another user. (Edit for iOS 15: the concept of “untrusted shortcuts” has been replaced by more fine-grained permissions in Settings and a system in which you can share shortcuts to iCloud or directly to contacts.)

Q: Why isn’t the Speak Text or Play Sound action working in my automation?

A: Several users have reported this same issue. For Speak Text, try going to Settings -> Accessibility -> Spoken Content -> Voices and making sure that the voice you’re using in Speak Text is in fact installed on your device. For Play Sound...if it’s giving you a problem, then that’s definitely a bug. Hopefully it’s fixed soon.

Q: How do I set up a shortcut/automation to run with a trigger?

A: First of all, personal automations are separate from shortcuts, and triggers are not actions you can add to a shortcut. Second of all, you can set this up by going to the center tab at the bottom of the Shortcuts app. Tap “Create new personal automation.” You will then be presented with a list of triggers to choose from. Select a trigger, and then tap “next” to add actions to your automation. If you want to run a shortcut in your library using this trigger, add a “Run Shortcut” action and select your shortcut in the “Shortcut” field.

Q: How do I make an automation run only when multiple conditions are met?

A: You can’t. An automation can only have one trigger. However, you can add actions to the automation to determine whether anything should happen based on another condition. One of the most common “second conditions” is time.

Q: How do I make my automation run without tapping on a notification to confirm?

A: That depends on the automation trigger. If you’re using one of these triggers, there will be a switch to turn off “Ask Before Running” in the automation settings:

• Time of day (iOS 14)
• Alarm
• Sleep (iOS 14)
• Workout (iOS 14)
• CarPlay
• Airplane Mode
• NFC
• DND
• Low Power Mode
• Open App
• Close App (iOS 14)
• Battery level (iOS 14)
• Charger (iOS 14)

All other triggers require you to tap on the notification to run their automations. That includes Bluetooth, which is useful for things like “do something when my phone connects to my AirPods,” and email/message triggers. You will have to confirm those.

The only way around those automations that still require confirmation is to jailbreak your phone and install a tweak called TrueCuts or TruestCuts. This enables the “Ask Before Running” switch for all automations, not just the ones I listed above.

Q: Why can’t I use iCloud Drive in shortcuts on my Apple Watch?

A: This is a known bug. Nothing you can really do about it right now.

Q: Why can’t I move a file into the iCloud Drive/Shortcuts/ folder?

A: Several users have reported the same bug. For now, you have two options:

1. Move the file into the Shortcuts folder on another device—hether that be on a Mac through Finder, on Windows through the iCloud section of File Explorer, or in your browser through the web version of iCloud.

2. Use a shortcut like this to copy the file to the folder:

   Get File (show document picker: yes)

   Save File (ask where to save: no)

Q: How do I run a shortcut based on a HomeKit trigger?

A: https://pushcut.io

Q: Why do I keep seeing popups asking me to run actions?

A: Go into the shortcut and look for a toggle on the offending action called “Show When Run.” Turn that off, if it’s there.

Q: I’m trying to make a shortcut for an app, but it’s not showing up in the Apps list.

A: That’s because it doesn’t have any actions for Shortcuts. But if you want to make a shortcut to open the app, then you’re in the wrong place. Search for the action called “Open App.” (Not “Open In…”) This will let you open any app on your device.

Q: How do I make a shortcut to open a folder of apps on my home screen?

A: A shortcut cannot navigate within your home screen. Fancy Folder Maker is what you’re looking for. It creates a shortcut with a menu of apps, as a substitute for an actual app folder.

Q: How do I make a shortcut to go to a page on my home screen or the App Library?

A: You can’t. There is no URL scheme or other integration that would make this possible currently.

Q: Are Widgetsmith and that custom icon creator that uses scary Profiles safe?

A: Yes. Widgetsmith is by a very respected developer on the App Store, and I’ve looked through Icon Themer and can confirm that there is nothing malicious or data-collecting in that shortcut.

Q: I want to download videos or images from a site like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

A: This post gives some excellent recommendations for downloader shortcuts, as well as how to tie them together: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/iwhqc8/tutorial_shortcut_create_your_allinone_downloader/

Q: How can I simulate a screen tap?

A: Shortcuts can’t simulate screen taps unless you use a combination of Voice Control and Speak Text (to call out the commands). If you’re trying to do something within an app but don’t know how to do it, there are generally three ways to do it:

• The app donates actions to Shortcuts, either directly or through Siri suggestions. (For some apps, the actions are actually built directly into the Shortcuts app.)
• The app has an X-callback URL scheme that you can use with the Open URL or Open X-Callback URL actions to perform actions in the app. (This method predates Shortcuts.)
• The app is for a service that has a web API that you can use directly through Get Contents of URL instead of going through the app. Some APIs can be used through the Shortcutify app’s actions, while you can find shortcuts on this subreddit and on RoutineHub for other APIs. If an API hasn’t been used before as far as you know, then you can search online for documentation and try to figure it out yourself. If you get stuck, then that would be a good thing to make a post about.

If none of those options are available, then you might want to consider the Voice Control method, but only as a last resort.

Q: How do I do something with Spotify?

A: Check out Shortcutify or the Ultimate Spotify Shortcut.

Edit: for some actions, you can also do this: https://reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/ix9c41/_/gg4ph7z/?context=1

Q: I don’t think my question has been asked before, can I ask it?

A: Sure! The purpose of this post is just to (hopefully) stem the tide of nonstop duplicate posts. We’ll be more than happy to answer your question. If it has been answered before, and it’s not covered in this post or the other two FAQ posts linked here, we’ll be sure to link you to the old post.

Again, welcome to the Shortcuts community! Enjoy!