6 iPhone Automations I (ACTUALLY) Use Everyday

[@spencerhealey]

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[@JonathanKuhn]

I found myself saying “Woah”to each of these automations. Totally doing the night light one right now.

[@babu_frik]

Bro, i am under utilizing the phone SO MUCH. You are a legend!

[@spencerhealey]

lol thanks! And glad it opened your eyes to some possibilities!

[@hoffhousepetphotography]

Great and different shortcuts I've seen other places, actually useful

[@nbarshain]

Excellent content. Super clear, super helpful, and great production value. By my eye you should have 100k+ subscribers

[@spencerhealey]

Glad to know the finished product is valuable, thanks for the kind words!

[@carmellaking22]

Just did the orientation lock automation. Amazing! Thank you sir.

[@spencerhealey]

Glad you enjoyed it! I also find it useful for Photos and Safari :)

[@mikerisner]

This is a terrific video. Your shortcuts are both truly thoughtful and very thorough.

[@spencerhealey]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you found it useful!

[@harsim5539]

These are awesome ! Great video

[@lincolnlohann]

I use YNAB and I just loved the auto add automation! Thank you!

[@spencerhealey]

@@lincolnlohann Thanks! It was especially helpful since my bank wouldn’t sync to YNAB, I almost gave up on YNAB but this pulled me back!

[@CPcheat]

Great video ❤

[@spencerhealey]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@hezcobar]

I learned today, thank you

[@spencerhealey]

Awesome, thanks for the encouragement!

[@arpandutta3591]

Great stuff

[@spencerhealey]

Glad you liked it, thanks for the encouragement!

[@KyleBigler]

Enjoyed your video and look forward to more!

[@spencerhealey]

Glad you liked it!

[@AtlantisFitnessandPilates]

Wonderful video Spencer! That calendar to alarm shortcut is a lifesaver for me!

[@spencerhealey]

Ya I love it. Glad you found it useful!

[@kutler100]

Is there a way to offset the alarm from the calendar time? As an example, I would like the alarm to go off 30 mins before the calendar event.

[@spencerhealey]

@@kutler100 Yes, in shortcuts you can add an "Adjust Date" action right before you create the alarm. Then create the alarm with the adjusted date. It's a bit confusing so I put together a separate shortcut that does exactly what you've requested, if you check it out you'll see it subtracts 30 minutes just before creating the alarm: www.icloud.com/shortcuts/87583bbbd21f4a4cb2696cca15d1eba7

[@kutler100]

@ oh wow, thank-you so much. You really didn’t need to do that, but it’s certainly appreciated.

[@spencerhealey]

@ 🙏

[@IainDunn65]

Some great techniques here, well done

[@spencerhealey]

Thanks! Glad you found them useful!

[@SteveSpradlin]

Great video. Love the way you explain everything. New subscriber here. Thank you.

[@spencerhealey]

Thanks Steve!

[@TheCrystalCort]

Great video, very unique angle on shortcuts.

[@left.hand.solution]

well thought 👍, orientation toggle is my favorite

[@spencerhealey]

Glad you liked it! Hopefully Apple will eventually bake that feature right into an app’s settings.

[@zsoltmagyt]

Agree with other comments, nice work. I always knew shortcuts have great potentials but never got really a good idea for them. Thanks

[@spencerhealey]

Thanks so much! Glad I've nudged you in the right direction!

[@brittanykh]

This is literally the first video that had a shortcut I will actually use

[@imthedrivingcrooner]

i agree. i tried shortcuts this year and quickly found out how limited they are. this guy changed my mind.

[@_shankarnv]

For the first alarm shortcut, i feel its super useful at times , except there maybe a mistake i believe , being , you have to automate to everyday morning 5am or something cuz ; for a scenario uou have scheduled an event for next week and you added a notification , but since you have set it up to search event for next 24hours, it shall misses the event and if uou dont open the app for next 10days , you wont be notified.

[@spencerhealey]

Good catch, it would slip through the cracks in that case. I was originally considering someone who is already using their calendar frequently, but I like your idea of automating it to run every day at a set time each day. Another option is to trigger the automation to run after closing a few more apps (you can select more than one), so for example it may run when you close the calendar, but also whenever you close facebook and messages, etc. I'm currently working on my next video which will feature an updated version that works for events up to 7 days in advance. Thanks for the feedback!

[@Max-xl9qv]

1:47 so, not exactly an automation. Looks easier to just tell Siri to set an alarm.

[@rickyreyes6290]

For the alarm automation. Does the calendar event have to be set at a specific time, rather than "all day"?

[@spencerhealey]

Oooo, fantastic question. As it stands it would set an alarm for 12am (i.e. the beginning of the day). In the original build the idea was just to help you move from designing your plan for the day to executing on that plan (i.e. remembering to do certain things at certain times), but I'd be curious to know more about your use-case. What you would want to happen? For instance, it could always set alarms for all-day event alarms at 9am (or another fixed time), or it could prompt you to choose the time (though then it starts to feel like less of an automation). Any thoughts?

[@rickyreyes6290]

@@spencerhealey I know in the IOS calendar settings their is an option of what time "your day starts"- I set mine at 8am. So for an all day event, the alarm would go off at my "day start time" - 8am. Instead of waking me up when Im sleeping at 12am lol

[@ronybd007]

Nice

[@spencerhealey]

Thanks, I’m glad you liked them!

[@stevegreen1983]

Hi, I am new to looking in to using shortcuts. This video is great and I can see the the Calendar event / alarm shortcut working quite well for me, one question I have as seem to be getting stuck for my use case, can this shortcut also work for reminders that you have linked to your Calendar? I am trying to add 'Alarm' as a location on my reminder but it will not accept it? thanks

[@spencerhealey]

Hey thanks Steve, and great question. It won’t currently do that because even though they are visible in your calendar those are really only just reminders. However I’ll be releasing an updated version of this in an upcoming video and I think I’ll take a shot at working in some reminders integration for your type of use case.

[@UserCommenter]

Like your style bro. Putting your money where your mouth is w/o YT Premium too 😉 keep it up brother!! Thx 4 YNAB rec btw and your hair styling (time mgmt) app looked very pretty

[@spencerhealey]

Thanks! Lol, ya I use YT ads as my reminder to move: my (sorta) habit is to turn my head left and right whenever a YT ad comes on 🤷‍♂️

[@RiggerMoordus]

Don’t blink

[@spencerhealey]

lol, what?

[@terryliu5771]

Spencer, downloaded the alarm and calendar shortcut,but then how do you clear out all the alarms that were created automatically

[@Chsbobcat1]

“Hey, Siri. Delete all alarms.” It’ll delete every alarm you have other than the health/sleep one.

[@spencerhealey]

Hey Terry, (1) The Siri option is decent, but the drawback is that it deletes ALL alarms whether they are enabled or not. So a better option might be (2) this shortcut I made called “Alarm Clean Up” that deletes all disabled alarms (but doesn’t delete ones that are enabled). Here is the link: www.icloud.com/shortcuts/08ed0a105332430a9e82cdabbaf3798c Finally (3) I may take a shot at adding this feature into a future version of the shortcut which I will make a video about shortly. Hope that helps!

[@Chsbobcat1]

@@spencerhealey You’re incredible! If you sold a book of these with QR codes where I could buy, read to understand, and still get the automation/shortcut link… I’d 1000% buy.

[@terryliu3692]

@@spencerhealey Thanks for the response. I actually started using CHATGPT to help me through your code. I was trying to get the alarm to start 10 minutes before my actual alarm. And I didn't want day events to alarm and 12am. It took me a while to get it the code going and I got the day ones to not go and I think I figured out how to make it go 10 minutes before as well. So I reloaded your code, and the alarms didn't work anymore. :) So more coding on myside. I did think of a way to delet alarms - by putting a symbol when I schedule like "*" this would be the sign to delete this event. as I have events that are only activated during the week. Thank you again for your response.

[@RebelAirborne]

Hi Spencer, I tried to create the shortcut for Budget Auto-Add(YNAB). When I get finished, the shortcut will not let me press the done button. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[@johnmaxwell7939]

Hi Spencer, loving the Calendar/Alarm feature like everyone else, I'm just wondering if there is any way to set it up that future events (further than 24 hours away) automatically add themselves as alarms if they have the location set to "Alarm" too?

[@spencerhealey]

Ah, a couple thoughts: (1) if you use your calendar a lot, then eventually even those distant events will automatically get added (whenever you close you calendar with less than 24hrs to go) so you might find you can just “trust” the automation. (2) If you don’t use your calendar enough to trust it, then you can make the automation run more frequently (I.e. by triggering it to run from a few more frequently used apps). (3) I’ll plan to update the automation in a future video now that I know it’s something you’d like to see. But until now I’d stick with options #1 or #2.

[@johnmaxwell7939]

@@spencerhealey thats great thanks. I do use the calendar a lot but its always nice to know there's the backup there should I miss using it for any reason

[@WELLpsychology]

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@sanjaykumarst6151]

🎉

[@lalabois]

6:40 What app it that on the left

[@lalabois]

Pls help me

[@spencerhealey]

Routinery, check out how I set this up (and the other apps I recommend) in my guide: stan.store/spencerhealey

[@victorbitencourtarossi7750]

Great video! 🎉 Any free or cheaper solution for YNAB? Thanks!

[@tsiou2007]

Curve

[@bealwaysthere1109]

@spencerhealy : thanks for uploading such a wonderful and informative video. Can you upload a video, sending mutliple msg to a specific number ‘n’ number of times and stops at a particular time.

[@spencerhealey]

Great suggestion! I’m curious to know about your use-case. Are you messaging yourself, or someone else? What is your end goal? To remind someone of something? Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish I’m wondering if there might be a better app/tool/approach for the job.

[@bealwaysthere1109]

@ really appreciate for your reply. Am sending messages to another number with, multiple messages. Lets say I would like to send message to a number every one hour.