[Tip] Using Safari as a Shortcuts launcher

Shortcuts
1

Example

I once made a post here on using Safari favorites as an app launcher. Didn’t interest anyone else, but that didn’t really matter to me as it’s been very beneficial to me.

I am now posting on how you can also utilize this method to launch shortcuts while browsing Safari. Both the method above and this one are most beneficial on iPad but works well on iPhone as well. Also know, running this method opens the Shortcuts app and leaves Safari and does not take in the current webpage as input as you’d still need to use the share sheet for that. This also allows for quicker launching of specific shortcuts vs invoking widgets page, calling up Shortcuts app itself or using a Siri Shortcut.

Example use cases are if I want to quickly view what’s on my clipboard, quickly add a new task to Things 3, quickly view calendar events… whatever… I simply just tap the title in the favorites bar and off it goes.

Here’s how it’s done…

  1. Open Safari to any website

  2. Hit share sheet button, Hit add to Favorites (it will save the current URL for the site you went to but we will change that)

  3. Rename bookmark to whatever you’d like and save

  4. Go to your Bookmarks icon, Favs section and hit edit

  5. Select the bookmark you just created and remove the existing url.

  6. Input the following URL. shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=ShortcutNameHere

  7. Move bookmark to top of list

  8. Hit done

Tip: If your shortcut name has spaces, input %20 in between the words that would normally consist of a space. Ex. Test Shortcut would be Test%20Shortcut

Again, may not be beneficial to anyone else but extremely useful to me. Just felt I’d share with you all.

8 Likes
2

Huh. This is definitely interesting. I’m not sure how I’d use it, but it’s always good to learn new ways of doing things. Never know when they might come in handy down the road.

3

Exactly how I viewed it as well when I thought about it. But then things came to mind. Also, don’t just limit it to Shortcuts. You may also launch apps in this same fashion using the app URL scheme or even using a shortcut with the open app action if you don’t know the URL scheme of the app.

4

Alternative: Launch Center Pro.

5

Thanks for sharing. I’m definitely interested in this manifestation of automation.