Take a shortcut

Make quick work of organizational tasks with Shortcuts

Fans of Automator will know how useful, and how much fun, creating automated workflows can be. The same goes for Shortcuts in iOS or iPadOS. Now, Shortcuts has come to the Mac with macOS Monterey and it’s Automator with rocket boosters. As you’d expect, Shortcuts on the Mac syncs with iCloud, so any shortcuts you’ve created in iOS appear in the Gallery on your Mac.

Shortcuts are comprised of actions, and actions can be almost anything that you do on your Mac, from copying text to playing a track in your Music library. You build shortcuts by adding actions and passing their output to the next action in the sequence. A shortcut can be as simple as adding one reminder to a list, or have multiple actions involving several apps. You can invoke shortcuts on the Mac using Siri, Spotlight or a keyboard shortcut. You can also add them to Quick Actions in Finder, put them in the menu bar, or run them from the Shortcuts app. Third–party apps often have their own actions you can use to build shortcuts.