MacMost: Shortcuts

You can use default text transformations on your Mac to convert text to upper or lower case, or to capitalize every word. However, it is better to use styling in Pages. You can also create your own custom text transformation with Shortcuts.

When creating Shortcuts for the Mac or iOS you can use voice input easily when you trigger the Shortcut with Siri.

You can test your network speed on a Mac using speed test websites or a simple Terminal command in macOS Monterey. You can also easily put that Terminal command inside a Shortcut and then easily run a speed test from the Menu Bar any time you wish.

A new action in Shortcuts for Mac allows you to add a row of data to a Numbers spreadsheet. You can prompt for information and then record a time and some data. Numbers version 12 is required. An older technique allows you to change existing data in a Numbers spreadsheet.

You can use the Shortcuts app on your Mac to create quick text inserts or replacements. The Shortcut can prompt for text, let you choose from a list, or include the current date and time.

There is no simple built-in command to center a window on a Mac. But you can use other techniques. Learn how to combine two window movements to center a window, or use scripted Shortcuts, or a third party app.

You can use the Shortcuts app to make it easy to add new Reminders. This could come in handy if you often find yourself recreating the same reminders every day or week.

If you have a list of items you need to sort, you can do it using what you have on your Mac or some free apps. Learn how to sort in Pages, Numbers, the Terminal, VIM, CotEditor and using a Shortcut.

Learn more about creating your own Shortcuts by following along with this watermark tutorial. Build a Shortcut that will add an overlay to an image file and save the file to the same location with a new name. This can be the basis for all sorts of image modification Shortcuts.

You can create a Shortcut that will allow you to capture a portion of your screen, and then the text from that image will be extracted and placed in the clipboard. This is useful where you can't normally select and copy text from websites and apps.

The new Shortcuts app in macOS Monterey introduces a whole new world of power automation to the Mac. You can build Shortcuts from actions that control your Mac and apps. Apple includes a gallery of sample Shortcuts for you to use and learn from. Making your own is easy for those with some programming experience.

You can create a personal automation in the Shortcuts app to change your iPhone settings when you launch an app, and then change them back when you exit. For example, you can increase the font size, but only for that app or a set of apps.

iPhone Shortcuts don't have to be long and complicated. Here are 10 one or two-action shortcuts that are easy to build and very useful. Also learn a good way to launch these from your Home screen.

With iOS 14 you can now trigger Shortcuts automatically without needing to confirm the action. You can set up personal automations to run at specific times or with actions like when you turn on Do Not Disturb or launch an app. However, many actions can't complete if your iPhone is locked, making this of limited use.

Learn how to create a Shortcut on your iPhone that you can activate with your voice to turn on Do Not Disturb. The Shortcut will then ask you for a number of miniutes and automatically turn off. You can also set it to activate silently as a Home screen icon.

You can use the Shortcuts app on your iPhone or iPad to create a quick method to shrink an image before sharing it. With this more advanced Shortcut, you can choose a size in pixels or percent, and select the image format and quality.

Sometimes you need to shrink an image in order to upload it to a web site or send to someone. You can do this easily on a computer, but it is harder to do on an iPhone or iPad. This Shortcut will give you a way to do it by sharing the photo to create a smaller file.

You can buy cheap NFC tags and use them to trigger Shortcuts and other actins on your iPhone. You can set up a Personal Automation that automatically runs when triggered by touching your iPhone to a tag. You can also write information to tags that can bring up web pages and request other actions from any iPhone or Android user with a recent device.

New iOS 13 iPhone Shortcuts automation are great, but you can't have most automations play without manually confirming first. However, you can have an automation triggered when you stop an alarm, which leads to some interesting uses. In these examples, we'll have a song or podcast start when you turn off your alarm. We'll also create a more complex shortcut to play a playlist matching the name of the day.

A new feature in iOS 13 and iPadOS is the ability to have Shortcuts trigger automatically, at a certain time of day, when you launch an app, change a setting or move to a new location. You can use this to make Shortcuts much more useful. Take a look at two quick examples. The first simply forces the Calendar to jump to the current day every time you open it. The second will display a special Reminders list when you turn on Do Not Disturb, but only if there is at least one item in that list.