Shortcuts (formerly Workflow) is a visual scripting application developed by

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

and provided on its

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

iPadOS iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple for its iPad line of tablet computers. It was given a name distinct from iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones to reflect the diverging features of the two product lines, suc ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

watchOS watchOS is the operating system of the Apple Watch, developed by Apple Inc., Apple. It is based on iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone, and has many similar features. It was released on April 24, 2015, along with the Apple Watch, the o ...

and

visionOS visionOS is a mixed reality operating system derived primarily from iPadOS and its core frameworks (including UIKit, SwiftUI, ARKit and RealityKit), and MR-specific frameworks for foveated rendering and real-time interaction. It was develope ...

operating systems. It allows users to create macros for executing specific tasks and automations on their device(s). These task sequences can be created by the user and shared online through

iCloud iCloud is the personal cloud service of Apple Inc. Launched on October 12, 2011, iCloud enables users to store and Data synchronization, sync data across devices, including Apple Mail, Calendar (Apple), Apple Calendar, Photos (Apple), Apple Ph ...

. A number of curated shortcuts can also be downloaded from the integrated Gallery. Shortcuts are activated manually through the app, shortcut widgets, the share sheet, and

Siri Siri ( , backronym: Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) is a digital assistant purchased, developed, and popularized by Apple Inc., which is included in the iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, Apple TV, audioOS, and visionOS operating sys ...

. They can also be automated to trigger after an event, such as the time of day, leaving a set location, or opening an app. Shortcuts was originally created by DeskConnect, Inc. (Ari Weinstein, Conrad Kramer, Veeral Patel, and Nick Frey) for MHacks Winter 2014 competition and was awarded first place for Best iOS App.

History

Workflow originally began as a project at The University of Michigan's MHacks. In 2015, Workflow received an

Apple Design Award The Apple Design Awards (ADAs) is an event hosted by Apple Inc. at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The purpose of the event is to recognize the best and most innovative Macintosh and iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός ...

for its integration with iOS accessibility features such as

VoiceOver Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique used in radio, television, filmmaking, theatre, and other media in which a descriptive or expository voice that is not part of the narrative (i.e., non- ...

. On March 22, 2017,

acquired Workflow for an undisclosed amount. Following the purchase, the software was made available for free. An accompanying update also changed some of the service providers used within the app to those owned or preferred by Apple, such as

Apple Maps Apple Maps is a web mapping service developed by Apple Inc. As the default map system of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS, it provides directions and estimated times of arrival for driving, walking, cycling, and public trans ...

and

Microsoft Translator Microsoft Translator or Bing Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise pro ...

, and closed submissions of workflows to Gallery. On September 17, 2018, the Workflow app became the Shortcuts app, which runs shortcuts with

, along with

iOS 12 iOS 12 is the iOS version history, twelfth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., Apple. Aesthetically similar to its predecessor, iOS 11, it focuses more on performance than on new features, quality improvemen ...

. The app was announced on June 4, 2018, at

WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

2018. On September 19, 2019, with the public launch of

iOS 13 iOS 13 is the thirteenth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple for the iPhone, iPod Touch and HomePod. The successor to iOS 12, it was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June ...

, the Shortcuts app became a default app installed on all iOS 13 devices. On June 7, 2021, at

2021, a desktop version of the Shortcuts app was announced for

. On September 12, 2022, Apple launched an update to the Shortcuts app as a part of

iOS 16 iOS 16 is the iOS version history, sixteenth major release of Apple Inc., Apple's iOS mobile operating system for the iPhone. It is the successor of iOS 15, and was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 202 ...

. This update included the ability to integrate Siri voice assistant with Shortcuts.

URL scheme

Shortcuts also supports a URL scheme. This works as follows: * shortcuts://
Opens the Shortcuts app. * shortcuts://gallery
Opens the Gallery with Shortcuts that have been premade by

. *shortcuts://gallery/search?query='' earch words'
Searches the gallery for the search word.

URL encoding URL encoding, officially known as percent-encoding, is a method to encode arbitrary data in a uniform resource identifier (URI) using only the US-ASCII characters legal within a URI. Although it is known as ''URL encoding'', it is also used more g ...

is required to use multiple search words. *shortcuts://create-shortcut
Creates a new shortcut and opens that shortcut in the editor. *

shortcuts://open-shortcut?name=''ame #REDIRECT  AME 
{{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page  ...
'

Opens the shortcut in the editor that has the specified name. URL encoding is required. *

shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=''ame #REDIRECT  AME 
{{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page  ...
'&input='' ee note'&text='' ee note'

Executes a shortcut, optionally including an input. Note: The parameters "input" and "text" are optional. If you pass "clipboard" to input, the clipboard is passed as input. If you pass "text" to input, the parameter "text" is retrieved and the text stored there is passed as input. There, URL encoding is required.

References

External links

Workflow
Website & Documentation {{macOS Automation software Apple Inc. acquisitions IOS software MacOS IOS-based software made by Apple Inc.

History

URL scheme

See also

References

External links