Introduction to Shortcuts on the Mac, iPad, and iPhone

0:02
In this video, I’m going to give you an introduction to the shortcuts app. With the shortcuts app, what we can do is run a list of actions in order to perform specific tasks. Sounds complicated, but it really isn’t too difficult to create shortcuts. And they can come in quite handy.

0:20
We’re going to look at this on the Mac, iPad and iPhone, let’s first look at it on my Mac. Now, the shortcuts app is just another app. So on my Mac, it’s located in my Applications folder. So I go down to my Applications folder here in my dock. And then when I click on it, you’re going to see shortcuts. When I select this, to open it up, what I can see are all of my different shortcuts that I have available to me. So these are all the different shortcuts that I’ve created. Now, in the introduction, I mentioned that a shortcut runs a list of actions in order from top to bottom. So when we look at the shortcut here, new note with date, we can see it has six actions.

1:07
When we look at this shortcut here, it has three actions. When I run this shortcut, what is going to do is perform those three actions in order. How do we run a shortcut? Well, on the Mac, what we do is we click on the play button here, I’m going to go back over to my new note with date, I want to create a new note with date, all I have to do is just click on the play button here. It asks me what I want to say this is one of the actions. So I’m just going to go with test. I click on Done. And now we can see we have my new note called test with the date. And the shortcut created all this it added the data that at the time, and then it also added what I put in there. So now what I’m able to do is just click on this play button here to add another note.

2:01
I’m going to call this one test two. And now we can see we have another note with the date. So as we can see a shortcut basically runs a list of actions. In this case here, it asks me what I want in that note. And then it created that note, added the date and time and then added what I wanted in that note. So it’s doing that in a list of actions. If you want to view those actions, you only view those steps, all you have to do is just go over to my shortcut here. And when I double click on this here, I don’t double click on the play button. That’s how we play it. But if I double click on this, it opens up that shortcut, and I can see all six actions.

2:43
So we can see here’s the first action, it’s going to create the note. This here has a comment. So it’s telling me what it is. This is another action but it doesn’t really do anything. The next thing it does, it asks for text. What do you want it to say? And then it appends what I typed in there. And then it shows me the note. So we can see it’s just performing a list of actions. We’ll take a look at one more for the Mac here. And then we’re going to look at it on the iPad and the iPhone, I’m going to go to my Mac shortcuts shortcuts can be specific to the device.

3:20
As an example, we have here, tile last for windows on the Mac, we can have different windows open well on the iPad and the iPhone, we can’t have different windows open. So we can’t run this particular shortcut on the iPad and the iPhone. So shortcuts can be specific to each device, but they don’t have to be. I’m going to go to this splitscreen Calendar and Notes. When I run this shortcut, it’s going to open up the Calendar app and the Notes app and put them side by side. So now I just click on the play button here and watch what happens. There’s my calendar app. We can see it is working here. That’s what that little square here is. And now we can see we have the Notes app, and we can see that they’re side by side. I’m going to hide these.

4:11
Let’s take a look at this on the iPad and iPhone basically works the same way. And if you’re using iCloud, it syncs all of your shortcuts across all your different devices. So my shortcut here I have here on my Mac with a new note and date, I can run that on my iPad an iPhone. So now let’s go over to my iPad and iPhone. And you’re gonna see on my iPad here, let’s first look at the iPad. I have shortcuts. When I open this up, I can see all of my different shortcuts, including new note with date. I want to run it all I do is just tap on this. This works a little bit different than the Mac remember how on the Mac, we went to the corner and tap on the play button. Well, if I tap on these three dots here, it doesn’t play it what it does is it added said now I can see all those different apps sections in there, and you’re gonna see they’re the same actions that were on the Mac, it’s sharing this across all my devices. If I wanted to insert a different date in there, I can click on this and insert a different date. I’m going to close this to run a shortcut on the iPad. And what I do is I tap on this, I don’t tap on the three dots.

5:21
And now it runs it. Now you’re going to see it’s asking me what I want to say. So let’s go to test three, I tap on Done. And there it is test three. On the iPhone, it works the same way. So now let’s go over to my iPhone here, and you’re going to see I have shortcuts, it is just another app. And here are all my shortcuts. I just swipe up to view all of them. I want to create a new note with date, all I have to do is just tap on this, if I tap on the three dots, it’s going to show me all the actions, I don’t want to do that I just want to run it. What I do is I tap on this. And now you can see it’s asking me what I want to say. So let’s call this test. Four, tap on Done. And now we have my test four. And that was all created with a shortcut. Now why do we want to use shortcuts?

6:17
Well, as you can see, they can make things a lot easier. With a tap of a button, I can create a note and add a date to it. But what I have to do is I have to open up that shortcut to do that. So that makes it more difficult again, so why not just open up a note and do it? Well, with shortcuts, what we’re able to do is add them to our home screen on the iPad and iPhone. And on the Mac, what we’re able to do is add it to our Menu Bar. So I’m going to go back over to my shortcuts here. I’m on my iPhone. And let’s say I wanted to add this new note with date to my homescreen. So then it’s like an app, all I have to do is just edit it. So I’m going to click on the three dots where I can see the actions. And then we go up to this little blue dye here. And I have Add to Homescreen. Tap on it. I type in what the name is I’m going to leave it there, tap Add. And now we can see we have a new note with date, all I have to do is just tap on that. And it’ll ask me what I want to say. And it’ll create a new note.

7:22
So just by tapping on a button, now I can easily create a new note with a date. We do the same thing on the iPad. If I go over to my iPad here, I’m going to go back over to shortcuts. And I have my new note with date. I want to edit it. So I tap on the three dots. And then we go over to our lines here. And I’m able to add it to the home screen. I’m going to tap on Add here. And now we see my new note date. I just tap on that. And it’ll create a new note, it’ll ask me what I want to put in there, and it’ll add the date. Now on the Mac, what we can do is we can add it to our Menu Bar. So I’m going to go back over to my Mac, we have my new note with date, I want to edit this. Well on the Mac, what I do is I double click on this area here, I don’t click on the play button. Like I said it’s kind of backwards. So on the Mac, I double click on this, I can edit it, or we go over to our little icon here. And now what I’m able to do is pin it to the menu bar. And now when I go up to my menu bar here, you’re going to see a new note with date. So what I can do now is quit out of my shortcuts here, I need to create a new note with date, I just go up to the menu bar, select new note the date, it’s going to ask me what I want to say we’ll go test six, I think I was on test six might even testify. But we’ll just go with test six here. And now we can see we have my test six did all that for me just by going up to the menu bar. So that’s what the shortcuts app is on the Mac, iPad and iPhone. Basically what it does is it allows us to create shortcuts for specific tasks.

9:02
We do this by creating a list of actions. Then when we run that shortcut, it’s going to perform all those actions, it can be just a simple single action to more complicated shortcuts where it may have 50 or 60 actions in it. Once we create that shortcut, what we’re able to do is add it to our home screen on the iPad and iPhone, so we can just tap on it to run that shortcut. We don’t have to go into the shortcuts app and find it we can just create our own shortcut app. On the Mac, we can add it to our Menu Bar again. So we don’t have to open up the shortcuts app, we just go up to the menu bar. And then what we’re able to do is run a shortcut just by going to the menu bar. So if you have a lot of tasks that you do on a regular basis, well you may want to do is take a look at the shortcuts to see if it can help you perform those tasks. So that’s an introduction to the shortcuts app on the Mac, iPad and iPhone.