This week saw the public release of LaunchCuts, and it brought some level of organisation to Shortcuts. Something I’ve been craving since the earliest days of Workflow. Over the course of the beta and this last week I’ve got to the point where I’ve stopped tweaking things for now, and have achieved a stable(?) set of folders.
I’ve included a screenshot of my own listing below, and you can read more here about how all of the folders are set-up, but I’m wondering if what particularly cunning set-up approaches that I’ve overlooked, and what other people’s set-ups look like in general. I’m expecting there’s at least as much diversity as on people’s home screens.
Mine is still very much under development and being built. I need to find a lump of time to update everything as necessary. I am looking at a naming/colour/icons convention to allow LaunchCuts to pick up most of the Shortcuts without the need for tags.
I’m assuming that the symbol in brackets in your folder names is to allow automatic filing from the Shortcut name. (Update: I have now had the chance to read your linked blog post explaining your process/confirming my assumption🙃)
I am currently using tags to create folders that contain Shortcuts:
that use specific 3rd party tools (Toolbox Pro, Data Jar (beta), Drafts, Scriptable, Pushcut, Things 3, Text Case, Airtable etc).
are downloaded from a particular source (Federico Viticci/MacStories, Matthew Cassinelli, Dr Drang, Rosemary Orchard, people on these forums etc).
I’ve been meaning to tidy up my 800-odd shortcuts but it’s a bit too intimidating a mountain to climb for me at the moment! I have so many one-shot testing shortcuts for Toolbox Pro it makes me want to nuke it and start again with a proper LaunchCuts system in place
For what it’s worth, I’d been creating workflows/shortcuts for several years for myself and others, and I got up to almost 1400 before I backed them up and wiped out my entire library last month. It’s definitely cathartic afterwards, but the iOS13 sync issues I had trying to delete across all devices nearly drove me insane. I ended up deleting probably 5-6 times that many as things kept reappearing. It took me days to force everything to sync to zero, but I’m already up at over 100. I dare say if LaunchCuts had been around then, that could have helped with some of my pruning demands.
Ah that doesn’t sound fun at all. I recently bought an iPad and it synced an entirely different, older library compared to what’s on my phone. My phone is on the beta so I presume it’s because of that but it doesn’t bode well for tidying everything up!
Have been thinking of adding custom icon support for folders. Would you replace the Emoji names in your folders for SF Symbol icons?
My folder setup is pretty simple at the moment:
All Shortcuts
Development - Edit Mode of All Shortcuts
Favorites - My most used shortcuts
LaunchCuts Dev - Edit Mode Smart folder using “LaunchCuts” as tag
Missing Icons and Colors
Unfiled Shortcuts
Widgets
I have a few others, but they are test folders that I’m using while I develop the app.
@sylumer For your Everything, Widget, and Share Sheet smart folders. I would change the filters condition from Matching All to Matching Any since you don’t have any additional filters aside single toggles enabled respectively. It will make loading those folders faster since it won’t have to check the other filters.
Thanks for writing the article. Very comprehensive. I’ll link to it from the LaunchCuts website later today.
Yes I would. I just wanted a glance-able indicator as well as the text. I can’t say for sure which my brain latches onto first for identification (it may even be relative position), but I figured by having both then that’s more options.
Thanks for the tip . At the moment, I don’t have enough shortcuts to notice any performance difference. I’d assumed it would be checking all anyway. But as I rebuild and add new shortcuts I expect performance could become far more noticeable. I’ll switch that matching over today.
. At the moment, I don’t have enough shortcuts to notice any performance difference. I’d assumed it would be checking all anyway. But as I rebuild and add new shortcuts I expect performance could become far more noticeable. I’ll switch that matching over today.