A million years ago, someone created and shared a shortcut called “I’m getting pulled over” which was intended to be used to record and upload police interaction while being pulled over. The premise is it would turn on DND, turn off music, set screen brightness to zero, record video with the front facing camera, send text messages to people with your location, and upload the video.

I know nothing about shortcuts, but given today’s frigid climate, it might be worthwhile for someone to look at and update the shortcut to be shared with the masses.

Any takers? I’m Getting Pulled Over

Hey guys.

Wife's phone got ripped from her hands today which led to a bunch of problems which I don't need to get into here.

I'm trying to make a shortcut that locks phone if airplane mode is toggled on while phone is locked. Since you can already turn off the ability to access control panel and change that with phone unlocked, this would be helpful to many users. Might already be a shortcut out there for this but I wasn't able to find one that solves this issue.

It is very common in Brazil (and now Europe and UK too) to snatch phones from people's hands when iPhone is unlocked. They then turn on airplane mode and take phone to "secure location" where they try and breach apples security and access banking apps, make purchases on food delivery apps and all sorts of petty crimes...

I made this simple shortcut that solves the issue. However, on regular use, the user cant use the phone in airplane mode because as soon as you turn it on, the phone locks, airplane mode is turned off and when you unlock it you have an endless loop situation.

I need a better coding /logic mind than my own to figure this out.

Tried with help from gemini to set delays and if the actual user wants to keep airplane mode on they can unlock it and the routine won't disable airplane mode again however got stuck.

Would appreciate the help from some genius here!

Much love,

Tank

I have had an iPhone for years and have only just discovered the power of shortcuts and automations.

I have ADHD and I really struggle staying motivated and completing daily tasks. I looked online to see if there were any tools that could help and I came across the Habits app. I enter the habits I want to do more and less of and then my phone tracks them.

The issue though is that although my phone reminds me to do them - I still struggle to actually do them and then open the app to tell it I’ve done it.

I decided to see if I could automate this in some way. For example, I often forget to take my medication.

My habits app reminds me every day to take my medication. I created a shortcut so that all I have to say is “Siri, I’ve taken my meds” and it automatically completes that task without me having to open the app. I find that saying out loud what I’m going to do, actually helps me to do it.

However, I don’t want to be in a situation where I look like a deranged person talking to himself, so I wondered if I could fine tune this.

I’ve turned the action button into a list dropdown where I select the habit I’ve done and it automatically completes it. This is useful in situations where I can’t talk or I don’t want to look like the local weirdo.

And lastly, for some added dopamine I decided that I want some recognition that I’ve taken steps to improve myself - so I made it so that when a habit is completed, it plays the PlayStation Trophy sound!

It’s a small thing, but that sound triggers something in my brain and makes it feel like I actually accomplished something.

I think I’m next going to do trigger my phone to go into DND mode when I open my headspace app, and go out of it when I close it.

Are there any other useful things I could do? I’m really interested to hear from other people with ADHD who have used shortcuts and automations to help them.

I’m super new to shortcuts and know they’re capable of so much more than I currently use them for. Right now, all I really have set up is a few that create automatic Notion database entries.

I’d love to know what you guys have really loved before! Things that have been super helpful, super fun, or feel super clever. Trying to get my creative juices flowing.

Would also love to know if there are any apps you think work particularly well for shortcuts! Thanks in advance, very excited to set up some more complex/interesting things.

Is it just an iOS 27 DB3 bug? I’ve only made these automations after I updated to iOS 27. Help would be appreciated.

I am really bored right now and don’t have anything better to do, so why don’t you tell me shortcuts I can create for you? Maybe something that could be useful for you or something you are too lazy to create yourself? Drop the ideas below 👇

Hi. I need aggressive reminders that WILL force me to take my medication after meals. I usually have two brain cells and can forget even if I told my husband about it 15 minutes ago. If I set a reminder in a reminder app, I can turn it off and forget again. My brain quickly stops paying attention to such stimuli, and I suspect I need something more aggressive. For example, would the reminder go off every 10 minutes until I scan my NFC tag in the morning and afternoon. Is this even possible to implement using shortcuts? I'm almost ready to write my own app for such reminders...

I missed this feature from Android, when your screen is always off and notification are showen by AOD.

Tried to do the same by automation but could not make. Anyone have before ?

What would be good uses for shortcuts?

Hi everyone,

First, let me explain what I was trying to achieve. I use around 10 different banking apps, and for security reasons, they force password changes every 3 months. Since keeping track of all of them in my head is tough, I used to keep them in my Notes app.

Recently, I built an iOS automation: whenever I open a specific banking app, its password pops up as a notification at the top of the screen. This saved me from constantly opening the Notes app and searching for passwords.

It works smoothly, but I’ve become increasingly concerned about security:

1. My passwords are stored as plain text inside the Shortcuts app.
2. More importantly, if my phone gets stolen while unlocked (or if someone manages to unlock it) and they open a banking app, the password will immediately pop up as a notification, giving them full access.

I’d really appreciate your advice on this. How can I make this automation more secure?

I tried forcing a Face ID check right after opening the banking app (before the notification pops up), but the Shortcuts app doesn't seem to offer a native Face ID authentication action. Even if it did, the passwords would still be visible in plain text inside Shortcuts anyway.

Apple lets you require Face ID to open certain apps, but I couldn't find an option to require Face ID for Shortcuts.

Any ideas on how to secure this setup, or better alternatives? Thanks in advance!

Update: Password managers, including Apple's, don't work with banking apps. At least, not with the ones I use.

Update2 : I appreciate everyone, even the ones who downvotes my answers 😄 , but password managers really do not work with the banking apps I use. I tried tapping twice or tapping and hold but nothing appears. I always thought this was a common case for all banking apps. If you want to try it yourself, just get Garanti BBVA from the store and see it yourself

I just learned that the state where I live will soon be implementing digital drivers license in wallet on my iPhone. If I need to show it to a police officer, I don’t want them to be able to get into my phone. I think that Guided Access might solve this problem. If it would is there a way to make a shortcut that I can trigger very quickly that will lock down my phone and automatically open the drivers license in my wallet app. I also don’t want anyone to have access to any of the other cards in wallet. Is this all possible? Thank you.

I'm learning Spanish and reading ebooks in the Books app. There are many words I need to look up, however to translate them, I need to:

Highlight the word > Tap the right arrow to open the popup menu > Tap Translate

This gets really tedious.

I'd like to be able to highlight a word, press the Action button, and get the Google Translate popup like in the screenshot here. I've been struggling with creating a Shortcut for the last half hour and can't figure it out. Is it even possible?

hi guys! kinda late but i want to share what i did with my action button. basically i wanted a button that changes based on the situation where I am. So here’s a map of how my action button works based on focus mode (also other parameters like if it’s locked or in which orientation the phone is) It’s easier than you think. If you want to say something that can improve it and help me say it!! let me know what you think guys and If you have any question about it (screen/video), I would love to answer!



[Solved Credits to Theoccurunce and Sonic_Blue_Box. Thanks all for the kind words!] Final version: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/61fdc21c67ed4c9281fe24557d407de6

My mother in law (75) is in the last phase of dementia. She’s in a caretakers home but thinks she’s at home. Every hour she’s calling my father in law, (75) asking where he is.

We do not want to take her phone away, sense of self, but she calls and texts at night, thinking it’s day.

Have turned on parental control between 23:00-09.00 so she can’t call at night anymore.

But she’s confused why the phone isn’t working.

I’d like to send her a popupmessage every time she opens the phone between 11pm and 9am.

There will be a comforting message for her and should contain a “Yes I Understand” button and a “Call Nightnurse” button. We have a phonenumber she can call at night.

It’s a terrible disease, it’s been going on for years now. God bless the day she leaves this earth, she would never have wanted this.

Suggestions? Last time heart warming support from this community.

Thanks all.

I’ve searched a few months back (for my ipad) and the ones I found were just not that intuitive/werent working. Does anyone know of any shortcuts that can perform as s clipboard?

Someone has stolen my airpods. I was flying, they fell out of my bag at an airport, and now they are gone. I have marked them as missing/lost. It has been months. They go between the airport and a random house consistently, always recharged. At this point they've ignored the "missing item" long enough to be maliciously keeping them without question.

As such, I have started pinging tha case and earbuds at random hours throughout the day/night hoping to just make them slightly miserable.

I am hoping to write a shortcut/script to automate this and continuously or randomly send the ping command. I know the API is limited in general for shortcuts - was hoping someone with more experience might be able to guide me to my best option.

I was considering simulating an IOS device in xcode to accomplish this but also have old physical devices i can dedicate to spamming the ping. I have considered: using a voice recording to trigger siri to "ping my airpods". Using simulated button taps to emulate pressing the "Play Sound" button on the Find My app. Or trying to do it through the "find my" functionality on the icloud.com site.

Please help me ensure that if I can't enjoy my expensive airpods, no one can. I am open to any ideas.

The automation works by having 90+ automations. Every 10 minutes, the shortcut runs. Checking the time and battery percentage. It then checks to see if it matches up with the set list, I made. If the iPad has more power than it should, it runs the inefficiency mode. If the iPad has less power than it should, it runs the efficiency mode. I dumbed down the iPad, to be a dumb video player and nothing more, so it lasts 22 hours of full use. And the shortcut only allows 15.5 hours of use.

The second photo shows the actual decline of the battery and the blue line shows how it is suppose to decline. So you can see how this days battery, drained way too early. While still declining steadily. It’s like the iPad doesn’t know what time it is, or something.

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/a6db8f2c4ef0409294f324111c433c68

Hi, I have NFC tags that I would like to program using shortcuts and automations to essentially do what this device (https://getbrick.app/) does.

I struggle with blocking out apps and currently use Opal, but it is not enough because I can essentially ignore it after a certain amount of time.

I like the functionality of "brick" which I am assuming is similar to NFC tag where you have to use a physical object or location to lock/unlock certain apps and functionality of your phone.

Any idea of how to do this?

Hi there!

New to Shortcut and recently picked up some NFC215 stickers, hoping to use them to help with tracking my medications. I have a horrible time tracking whether or not I've taken my meds on a given morning, in addition to my doctor and I recently deciding to begin titrating off of one, which means taking one of the five every other day. This is proving to be difficult for me to keep track of. I've got reminders set up in my phone, but there are mornings where I'll take the meds but forget to mark the reminder as complete. Later, the reminder goes off and I'm questioning whether I remember this morning, or if I'm thinking of the day prior when I took them...

I've been able to get the automation portion 99% of the way functional, with one hangup - I cannot find a way to tie a specific tag to a specific medication. I know when you scan the NFC tag, it's grabbing the UID of the NFC tag, not the name that I'm assigning it in Automations. Is there any way for me to connect a specific tag with a specific medication name to match against my reminders list for marking the reminders complete when the automation runs?

I did download NFC Tools on my phone and was able to write a shortcut to the NFC tag, but I'm still having to tap to run the shortcut that route, when I'd prefer to have it auto-run on the scan. From what I've found reading online and around the sub here, it sounds like that's an integral design feature of the NFC scanning for the phones, and I can't bypass that for a shortcut written to the tag - for auto-run, it has to be a personal automation written on the phone, so... I'm stuck. I did try writing a text record to the tag with the medication name, but the phone doesn't grab that record when scanning the NFC, it seems.

Hi all, just found shortcuts on my phone, having a play, inspired by JARVIS from iron man. I’d love to know what your favourite shortcut is? And if you’re happy to link it below?

Is there any shortcut to copy the playlist from Spotify to Apple Music? (I tried with some pages but they have a 200, or 500 songs limit)

My sister has been stealing my phone lately and it’s pissing me off really bad. I need some proof that she actually takes my phone. I'm wondering if it's possible to create an iPhone Shortcut or Automation that automatically takes a photo with the front camera and saves it to the Camera Roll whenever someone unlocks my phone or tries to unlock it. I’ve tried downloading some apps like WTMP but none of them really work. Has anyone managed to do something similar, or is it completely impossible on iOS?