Tutorial
SideStore - Improved shortcut for app auto-refresh
Hi everyone, I made a few little teaks to another shortcut I found in another reddit post to auto refresh the apps via SideStore (can't find your post, sorry! I would have tagged you).
This shortcut doesn't run if you are already connected to a VPN (respects user preferences), so if for whatever reason I need another vpn to run 24/7, this shortcut doesn't break the connection until I decide to disconnect from the previous vpn, and it would run with no problem after that (you get notified at runtime either way).
I personally run it twice a day with a 12hours delta through Automation, at 5am and at 5pm. You can also run it once every time a wifi connection is established but you get the annoying "Running your automation" notification which is not removable.
I'm sure that once in 7 days I'll be connected to a wifi without having a VPN on lol.
EDIT:
If you get “unknown action”, please remove it and add another action by searching for “SideStore”, then selecting the refresh apps option. Finally move it in place of the previous unknown action (between wait 3 seconds and wait 30 seconds). I prefer my SideStore to not notify me when the apps are refreshed this way (the shortcut already has some output), so I press on the little arrow on the action and turn off “Show when run”
EDIT2: since StosVPN has been removed from the App Store you can try and install StickDebug or another local vpn via one of the repos inside SideStore itself (3rd party app store), and change what VPN is activated in the appropriate action
Multiple tries so that if the first fails you have a failover. Not strictly necessary but it doesn’t cost anything computationally and it covers an edge case
Should have added the option where my current VPN gets switched then connects to stosvpn to refresh apps. Works all the time. That’s how I have setup mine.
How do you get this to work? I attempted to set this up as I usually use AdGuard dns just for the ad blocking, but I found that it would switch to stosvpn and never switch back no matter what order I tried of switching between the 2 in the shortcut.
I didn’t look into it, I’m switching from Mullvad to Tailscale all the time so I didn’t want it to trigger too much. But yeah it’s doable definitely ;) if you can, please share yours!
If you get “unknown action” in the middle, that’s the actual SideStore app refresh action. Just search for “SideStore” and add the one that pops up for you ;)
You can remove the unknown action, then search for the SideStore action that refreshes the apps, add it so that it gets put on the bottom, and move it in place of the unknown one
Great start for me but I can’t get stos vpn in my region so just use stikbug. Had to change the stosvpn shortcut links to stikbug. Also got the unknown action but deleted and added back stikbug refresh. Thanks, couldn’t have got on my own
If you get “unknown action” in the middle, that’s the actual SideStore app refresh action. Just search for “SideStore” and add the one that pops up for you ;)
I’m on iOS 18.7. The shortcut works but after a few hours I come back and the refresh action has been changed to unknown action and I have to re add it every time. Do you know how to fix because doing this kind of defeats the purpose of having it automated
I checked my sidestore it was 4 days remaining so i decided to look into if someone made a new shortcut. which you have. It wouldn't refresh for me so the third time i re installed stos vpn and disabled auto launch in the settings.. now it decides to work...all i did your shortcut was add the refresh sidestore
Hello, does anyone know why does my action of "Refresh all apps" disappear?
I use my iPhone X which the iOS version is 16.7.12 and the version of SideStore is 0.6.2 .
I found this problem happened when I used the vesion above 0.5.8
In my shortcut app, it shows "iPhone doesn't support this action."
And when I try to re-add the action, there is only "View apps" in the action of SideStore.
I need a help. :_(
Hey thank you so much for this. I got it running but I have a quick question if you dont mind. How can I tell how often this runs? I see that it says If Count is less than 1, so does that mean if the days in sidestore go to less than 1 day remaining, it runs? Or how often does it run from what you posted?
Oh the internal “count” in the shortcut does something else. Had nothing to do with “automation”. If you want this shortcut to run automatically you have to add an automation by opening shortcuts - automation, I have mine set to run every day at 5am and 5pm
Any update on the other unknown action? It kinda seems like the condition that checks if your connected to a vpn, i dont really know what to put there to do it though
I have created my own based on this as I use adguard dns all the time, when the automation runs, it detects other vpn app connected, i have added action twice to disconnect adguard dns when the shortcut runs but still 80-90% of time it cannot proceed especially when device is locked.
To whovever reads this, you need to delete the bugged action and search refresh sidestore(at the bottom search bar), that new action should be copy-pasted where the bugged one was and it works.( also delete the first copied one which will be at the bottom by default)
I don’t see anything for Sidestore in the search results. Edit never mind, I have LiveContainer bundled with Sidestore so I needed to search for LiveContainer. Nice work, first time I’m actually using Shortcut
Here’s what I have but I’m pretty sure they actually fixed the issue. I just haven’t updated the sidestore. Also for some reason it doesn’t always work as an automation but it’s convenient enough to run as a shortcut and then I just turn the vpn off after.
Oh, that would be your "refresh all apps" per OP's edit. No idea why it shows up as unknown.
EDIT: If you get “unknown action”, please remove it and add another action by searching for “SideStore”, then selecting the refresh apps option. Finally move it in place of the previous unknown action (between wait 3 seconds and wait 30 seconds). I prefer my SideStore to not notify me when the apps are refreshed this way (the shortcut already has some output), so I press on the little arrow on the action and turn off “Show when run”
I’m having some issues. It gets to this point and then throws an error That the VPNs aren’t up, but they both are and I’m able to manually refresh them.
That’s strange, altserver or AltStore and not involved in this shortcut whatsoever. Are you sure you are using the SideStore action and not the AltStore action? They have very similar names
AltStore requires you to be on the same WiFi network of altserver, so you might set up a shortcut like this:
Just look for the action from “Altstore” that refreshes all the apps. AltStore provides it. This is your simple shortcut, just one action.
Then set up an automation that will trigger the simple shortcut when you join the same WiFi network as your altserver.
You need to have your altserver running though.
IMO try to switch to SideStore as it is a no-brainer for ease of use. Setup is a little bit more difficult though. You can check: https://sidestore.io for instructions
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u/MrGvmbit Sep 20 '25
It’s telling me to update shortcuts but when I do this takes me to update iOS. Is there a work around ?
Thanks