In this guide, we go over several ways to quickly run a shortcut on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac that don’t required opening Apple’s Shortcuts app.
Shortcuts is a built-in iPhone, iPad, and Mac app on designed to perform various complex tasks by chaining a set of actions together. You can obviously run your shortcuts from here, but there are many ways to run them without opening Shortcuts app.
Run a shortcut quickly on your iPhone or iPad
1. Ask Siri to open your shortcut
Invoke Siri and ask the assistant to run [shortcut name] or type your request
2. Add a shortcut to your Lock Screen
Starting with iOS 18, you can replace the flashlight and camera buttons on the Lock Screen with other actions, including custom shortcuts . When editing your Lock Screen, tap the default flashlight or camera icon at the bottom, select the Shortcut option, navigate to Choose > My Shortcuts heading, and pick a desired shortcut to open from your Lock Screen or Notification Center.
3. Assign a shortcut to the Action Button
The Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the iPhone 16 lineup can be configured to run a shortcut. I’ve set my Action Button to connect my AirPods or HomePod to my iPhone, but you can configure yours to open any shortcut you like, such as searching your iPhone screen with Google Lens.
Simply head to Settings > Action Button and swipe to the Shortcut option. Now tap the selector button or the current shortcut name and pick a shortcut from the My Shortcuts section.
4. Add a shortcut to the Home Screen
Minimalists don’t want shortcuts populating their Home Screen. But if your goal is to trigger a shortcut without too much fuss, this is one of the best ways to do it.
1) Open the Shortcuts app, touch and hold a desired shortcut tile, and choose Details from the hidden menu.
2) Select the Add to Home Screen option.
3) Customize your shortcut with an icon or a picture and then tap Add to have it placed on the Home Screen. Tapping the Home Screen icon will run your shortcut instantly without opening the Shortcuts app.
You can also add a shortcut to the Home Screen while building or editing it. Simply tap the arrow next to the shortcut name at the top and select the Add to Home Screen option.
The systemwide Share menu you see across apps holds options to share content with people, apps, and websites. Follow these steps to enable your shortcut to show up in the Share menu.
1) Go inside the Shortcuts section of the Shortcuts app.
2) Touch and hold a shortcut tile and choose Details from the menu.
3) Enable the Show in Share Sheet option and choose Done.
To quickly run a supported shortcut from an app like Photos, tap the share icon and scroll down to find your shortcut.
6. Run a shortcut by double-tapping the iPhone’s back
The Back Tap feature allows you to double or triple tap the iPhone’s backside to trigger custom actions, including launching a shortcut.
1) Open the iPhone Settings app and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap.
2) Select Double Tap or Triple Tap.
3) Scroll down to the SHORTCUTS heading and select a shortcut.
Try running the selected shortcut by double or triple-tapping the back of your iPhone to see if everything works correctly. If not, try to adjust your double-tapping speed as Double Tap can be unreliable.
7. Run a shortcut from a widget
You can use widgets on the Home Screen of your iPhone and the Lock Screen of your iPad, but did you know that you can also run a shortcut from the built-in Shortcuts widget? This is surely a much faster way to execute a Siri shortcut as opposed to launching it from inside the Shortcuts app.
8. Open a shortcut from the Control Center
iOS 18 brought a revamped Control Center that can be personalized to the heart’s content with pages and dozes of new controls that are available as widgets in the Control Center gallery. Feel free to add a Shortcut widget to the Control Center and assign it any shortcut you like. Doing so will allow you to open a shortcut from within the Control Center with a quick tap of its icon.
Run a shortcut quickly on a Mac
With macOS Monterey, Apple introduced the Shortcuts app to Mac owners. As usual, you can run a shortcut from the Shortcuts app. To make things quicker, however, here are a few ways to launch a shortcut on your Mac without being bothered to open Shortcuts.
1. Ask Siri to run a shortcut
Invoke Siri on your Mac and give it a voice or typed command to run [shortcut name].
2. Open a shortcut from the Dock
Put a shortcut in the Dock of your Mac to trigger it quickly and effortlessly. You can even set your shortcut to run automatically when your Mac starts up (we’ve used this handy trick to automatically play music when you switch on your Mac and open your favorite websites without a single click).
1) Open the Shortcuts app and go to the All Shortcuts screen.
2) Select a desired shortcut by clicking it once.
3) From the menu bar at the top, click File > Add to Dock.
You can now click the shortcut icon in your Mac’s Dock to quickly run it.
3. Open a shortcut via the Launchpad
When you add a shortcut to the macOS Dock, its icon automatically appears in the Launchpad. You can then access the Launchpad to open your shortcut from there.
4. Put a shortcut on the desktop
Once the shortcut icon is in the Dock, search for it in the Finder and it should show up in search results. From there, drag the shortcut and drop it on your desktop.
After that, you can launch the shortcut by double-clicking its desktop icon.
Note: If you like, you can optionally remove the shortcut icon from the Dock because the desktop icon will stay intact.
1) Open the built-in Shortcuts app and double-click a shortcut to edit it.
2) Click the info button ⓘ or the settings icon from the top-right and check the option labeled Pin in Menu Bar.
Now you can run your shortcut by clicking the Shortcuts icon in the menu bar, which is where icons for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, current date and more are displayed.
6. Assign a shortcut to a keystroke combination
1) Open the Shortcuts app on your Mac and double-click a shortcut to edit it.
2) Click the info button ⓘ or the settings icon in the top right.
3) Tick the Add Keyboard Shortcut box.
Make sure to use a combination of keys that you or macOS don’t already use. Try triggering your shortcut with the desired key combination to confirm that it works. From now on, you can press these keys to run your shortcut instantly.
7. Put a Shortcut widget on the desktop
You can add widgets for individual shortcuts or the Shortcuts app to your Mac’s desktop to open them with a quick click.
8. Save your shortcut as a Quick Action
When right-clicking or Control-clicking a file or folder in the Finder, the Quick Actions option appear in the menu. Thankfully, you can add your shortcut to Quick Actions to use it effortlessly.
1) Open the macOS Shortcuts app and double-click a shortcut to edit it.
2) Click the info button ⓘ or the settings icon from the top right.
3) Tick the two options labeled Use as Quick Action and Finder.
4) Testing time! Open a Finder folder, right-click a file, select Quick Actions, and choose your shortcut.
Relevant options can appear in the Services menu, accessed by clicking the app name from the menu bar at the top and choosing the Services option. To make your shortcut show in up in the Services menu, be sure to tick the Use as Quick Action and Services Menu boxes on the edit screen in the Shortcuts app.
This will make your shortcut eligible for the Services menu. To add it there, open the System Settings app and navigate to Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services. Next, click the arrow for the Shortcuts entry to expand it, then check or uncheck individual shortcuts.
Now you can launch your shortcut from any app by clicking the app name in the menu bar and choosing the Services option.
10. Run a shortcut form the Touch Bar
You can have your favorite shortcuts appear in the Touch Bar of your MacBook Pro (Mac models powered by Apple silicon don’t have a Touch Bar).
1) Open the built-in Shortcuts app on your Mac and double-click a shortcut to start editing it.
2) Click the info button ⓘ or the settings icon near the top-right.
3) Tick the options labeled Use as Quick Action and Touch Bar.
4) Open the System Settings app, select General in the sidebar, and choose Login Items & Extensions on the right. Next, click the info button ⓘ next to Touch Bar and make sure to turn on your shortcut here.
5) Now select the Keyboard option in the System Settings sidebar, navigate to Touch Bar Settings > Customize Control Strip, and drag the Quick Actions button down onto the Touch Bar to add it.
That’s all there’s to it! You can now tap the Quick Actions icon in the Touch Bar and select your listed shortcut to run it.
11. Execute a shortcut via Terminal
Mac owners who prefer using the built-in Terminal app can also run shortcuts using this trick.
Run a shortcut from your Apple Watch
Most shortcuts don’t support Apple Watch, but some do. If your favorite shortcut is compatible with Apple Watch, tick the Show on Apple Watch box on the editing screen in the Shortcuts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
Your shortcut should show up on your Apple Watch. To run it quickly from your wrist, ask Siri, open the built-in Shortcuts app, or add it to your watch face.
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