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Apple highlights all the new features of the Shortcuts app in iOS 17

iOS 17 is finally available to the public, as are iPadOS 17 and watchOS 10. The updates come with a lot of new features, such as improvements to iMessage and FaceTime and NameDrop. They also bring a lot of new functionality to Shortcuts – and Apple has just published a detailed document highlighting everything that’s new in the Shortcuts app.

New Shortcuts app actions available with iOS 17

Apple describes the Shortcuts app as “a quick way to get one or more tasks done with your apps.” Users have endless possibilities for creating automations using native iOS features as well as integrations with third-party apps.

With iOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS Sonoma (which will be available next week), there are even more features available to users (via Matthew Cassinelli). For instance, you can now create a shortcut to transcribe an audio file into text, delete alarms, scan documents, or create a Time Machine backup.

Here’s a list of the new commands available with the updates:

  • Transcribe Audio generates text from an audio file
  • Delete Alarms removes specified alarms from Clock
  • Edit Sleep Alarm skips the next sleep alarm, or reactivates a skipped sleep alarm
  • Open Camera opens the Camera app into a specific capture mode, such as “Selfie”
  • Open Collection navigates to a specific section of the Photos app, such as “Places”
  • Show Passwords navigates to Passwords in Settings on iOS and System Settings on macOS
  • End Workout completes your current workout session on iOS and watchOS
  • Scan Document captures an image and saves it to the Files app on iOS
  • Get Current Timer, Pause Timer, Resume Timer, and Cancel Timer are now supported on iOS
  • Start Stopwatch, Lap Stopwatch, Stop the Stopwatch, and Reset Stopwatch are now supported on iOS
  • Set Hotspot Password and Get Hotspot Password are now supported on iOS
  • Toggle Cellular Plan, Set Default Line, Set Data Roaming, Find Cellular Plan, and Reset Cellular Data Statistics are now supported on iOS
  • Start Time Machine Backup starts or stops backing up your data with Time Machine on macOS
  • Move Window, Resize Window, Find Windows, Find Displays, and Find Apps are now supported on macOS

Updated actions

With the latest software updates, Apple has also improved some of the features that already exist in the Shortcuts app. Such as:

  • Set Timer can now start a new timer even if there’s already one running
  • Find Alarm now replaces Get All Alarms, retrieving all alarms or only those which match filter criteria
  • Set Volume can now adjust either the Media volume or the Ringtone volume
  • Health Samples now support more data types, like sleep, mood, and appetite changes
  • Event Attendees for Calendar now include a Type attribute, to distinguish people, groups, and rooms
  • Get Network Details now includes more options, such as channel number, hardware MAC address, and rate information
  • Take Photo is now more reliable when taking multiple photos in a row

For more details on what’s new in the Shortcuts app this year, check out the article published by Apple on its official website.

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Avatar for Filipe Espósito Filipe Espósito

Filipe Espósito is a Brazilian tech Journalist who started covering Apple news on iHelp BR with some exclusive scoops — including the reveal of the new Apple Watch Series 5 models in titanium and ceramic. He joined 9to5Mac to share even more tech news around the world.