16 ms·

Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

35 points by user0x1d 3y ago

I set up an automation to "reduce white point OFF" at night and back ON in the morning, so if I pick up my phone in the middle of the night my eyes don't burn

walterbell 3y ago
NFC card/sticker/tag tap: vibrate-confirm with audio description of associated object for vision impaired users. URL -> ssh -> shell script for actions not possible on iOS.
- purplecats 3y ago
  i used to have a couple of these stickers in my kitchen so when i need a timer for a specific amount of minutes, i just tap that one (rather than be pained to use siri and withstand the emotional turmoil using siri is)
andrewmcwatters 3y ago
I setup an automation to tell me when my battery reaches 100%. Sometimes I want to know so I can disconnect and move about for extended periods of time ASAP.
- stringtoint 3y ago
  On my Pixel phone I'm doing this with the Macrodroid app.
wdb 3y ago
Automatically battery saving mode when battery charge drops below 50%
- gcanyon 3y ago
  I have mine set to go to power save mode whenever I unplug it. I don’t know what a non-power-save-mode phone works like.
  - swah 3y ago
    Same. My phone goes for 3 days on that mode, easily.
kratom_sandwich 3y ago
MacOS: Combine several PDFs using Automator. Not spectacular, but always handy iOS: Activate low power mode when battery drops below 95% - neat workaround since there is no way to have low power mode turned on permanently. Also, activate Airplane Mode from 1 am to 6 pm to save energy.
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  > ...no way to have low power mode permanently Actually, this is indeed possible. Create an automation with the trigger "Low Power mode switched off" and add a single "turn low power mode on". Every time iOS switches it off, it should automatically retoggle back on.
sashk 3y ago
Wish I could create an automation, which would notify me when battery level in either of my AirPods drops bellow 10%... because sometimes when I put them in, they don't start charging. But nope, I cannot do it.
- purplecats 3y ago
  they should automatically be playing a sound when it reaches low battery levels
  - sashk 3y ago
    they do, the moment I plug them into the ears... :-(
gcanyon 3y ago
Not an automation, technically, but maybe it could be: I have an AppleScript that is set to run every hour that grabs any files on my desktop that have been there longer than a day, and puts them in a dated folder in an archive folder. Same for my downloads.
- nkotov 3y ago
  Could you share this? I have something similar for my own workflow but it's manual and involves a folder called "Everything".
  - robador 3y ago
    I'm also interested in this!
    - gcanyon 3y ago
      I wrote it up here a long time ago: https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-desktop-and-downloads-folder/ https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-des... I've made changes since then and I haven't documented them :-/ I'll try to find the time to write it up.
  - synthoidzeta 3y ago
    Here's what ChatGPT spits out: https://chat.openai.com/share/89b37ac6-cbe1-4f07-b1dc-7736c5da53b5 https://chat.openai.com/share/89b37ac6-cbe1-4f07-b1dc-7736c5...
    - dougskinner 3y ago
      This reply seems very low effort and not helpful.
  - gcanyon 3y ago
    I wrote it up here a long time ago: https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-desktop-and-downloads-folder/ https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-des... I've made changes since then and I haven't documented them :-/ I'll try to find the time to write it up.
bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
Not a specific automation, but the ability to run automations upon receiving an email lets you do some very cool stuff. For instance, I forward emails to a particular alias of mine, which kicks off a shortcut that adds the email to my reminders. But since you have access to the email body you could really do anything.
CraigJPerry 3y ago
Podcasts in the shower: on bluetooth speaker connect, add 15 mins to the current time, set focus mode that ignores everyone until 15 mins later, resume podcasts playlist wherever it was left off. Only annoyance with this shortcut is it’ll pop up a notification to approve running the shortcut when it detects the speaker has been turned on. I have those cheap paper nfc stickers hidden in random spots around the house and we have the same shortcuts setup on our phones so we can add dog food/loo roll/cleaning supplies etc etc to the shared shopping list in todo. Similarly i like being able to tap my phone on the way out my home office to run script over ssh and shut everything down, turn off the lights and plugs etc
- sintezcs 3y ago
  What app are you using for shared shopping list?
  - jrowley 3y ago
    Not OP but Apple’s native Reminders app supports shared lists.
Doe-_ 3y ago
I'm a deep sleeper and need several alarms to wake up. I have an automation which sets several at various increments, enables the sleep focus mode on my phone and sets the Home Assistant alarm script at that time too.
- FractalHQ 3y ago
  How’d you do this? I’ve got an alarm entry at every 10th minute of every hour from manually doing this over the years
fastily 3y ago
sort of an automation, but I install all my favorite apps with brew and then use brew again (brew upgrade && brew upgrade --cask -g) to update everything Bonus: I went the extra mile and wrote a script that bootstraps my entire setup: https://github.com/fastily/autobots/blob/master/macOS/setup/init.sh https://github.com/fastily/autobots/blob/master/macOS/setup/...
- KolenCh 3y ago
  Friends here: https://github.com/ickc/bootstrapping-os-environments/tree/master/macOS https://github.com/ickc/bootstrapping-os-environments/tree/m...
  - leipert 3y ago
    Brew supports dumping installed things into a brewfile: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle I was using text files before as well to manage it.
    - KolenCh 3y ago
      Looks interesting for someone who wants to bootstrap only those "stores" they support, and want to write in a DSL that doesn't translate to other usage scenarios. Don't get me wrong, it serves the general users with 4.6k stars, must be very useful for many people. But mine only serves me and serves me better than that—not that my code is better, but because I know what I need.
bobx11 3y ago
I have a cron job taking a picture of my desktop four times per minute into a dated folder structure. It allows me to zoom back in time (days out weeks back) to figure out what I was doing at a particular time or if I was showing someone a particular bit of code or something like that.
- rmwaite 3y ago
  Making this searchable for text would be the killer feature here.
- tikkun 3y ago
  Check out Rewind.ai! I used a similar app (Capturer.app) to do this automatically, and have since switched to Rewind - it's much better for my purposes.
  - swah 3y ago
    But its constantly using 30% CPU... maybe the screenshot solution is lighter!
- HAL9OOO 3y ago
  Mind posting the script? How much space do the images end up taking per day roughly?
ikyriakidis 3y ago
1. Switch off wifi, bluetooth, enable battery save mode at night and re-enable them in the morning 2. Switch off mobile data when connecting to my home wifi 3. Automatically enable and disable orientation lock when entering the photos app
mdwalters 3y ago
I was bored, so I used my parent's work iPhone to make a shortcut that grabs Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, plus definitions. It's based on the one Apple pre-made, but sends notifications instead of that web preview thing. It's not automated (so my parents wouldn't know), and runs via a home screen widget.

35 points by user0x1d 3y ago

I set up an automation to "reduce white point OFF" at night and back ON in the morning, so if I pick up my phone in the middle of the night my eyes don't burn

walterbell 3y ago

NFC card/sticker/tag tap: vibrate-confirm with audio description of associated object for vision impaired users. URL -> ssh -> shell script for actions not possible on iOS.

purplecats 3y ago
i used to have a couple of these stickers in my kitchen so when i need a timer for a specific amount of minutes, i just tap that one (rather than be pained to use siri and withstand the emotional turmoil using siri is)

andrewmcwatters 3y ago

I setup an automation to tell me when my battery reaches 100%. Sometimes I want to know so I can disconnect and move about for extended periods of time ASAP.

stringtoint 3y ago
On my Pixel phone I'm doing this with the Macrodroid app.

wdb 3y ago

Automatically battery saving mode when battery charge drops below 50%

gcanyon 3y ago
I have mine set to go to power save mode whenever I unplug it. I don’t know what a non-power-save-mode phone works like.
- swah 3y ago
  Same. My phone goes for 3 days on that mode, easily.

kratom_sandwich 3y ago

MacOS: Combine several PDFs using Automator. Not spectacular, but always handy iOS: Activate low power mode when battery drops below 95% - neat workaround since there is no way to have low power mode turned on permanently. Also, activate Airplane Mode from 1 am to 6 pm to save energy.

Obscurity4340 3y ago
> ...no way to have low power mode permanently Actually, this is indeed possible. Create an automation with the trigger "Low Power mode switched off" and add a single "turn low power mode on". Every time iOS switches it off, it should automatically retoggle back on.

sashk 3y ago

Wish I could create an automation, which would notify me when battery level in either of my AirPods drops bellow 10%... because sometimes when I put them in, they don't start charging. But nope, I cannot do it.

purplecats 3y ago
they should automatically be playing a sound when it reaches low battery levels
- sashk 3y ago
  they do, the moment I plug them into the ears... :-(

gcanyon 3y ago

Not an automation, technically, but maybe it could be: I have an AppleScript that is set to run every hour that grabs any files on my desktop that have been there longer than a day, and puts them in a dated folder in an archive folder. Same for my downloads.

nkotov 3y ago
Could you share this? I have something similar for my own workflow but it's manual and involves a folder called "Everything".
- robador 3y ago
  I'm also interested in this!
  - gcanyon 3y ago
    I wrote it up here a long time ago: https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-desktop-and-downloads-folder/ https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-des... I've made changes since then and I haven't documented them :-/ I'll try to find the time to write it up.
- synthoidzeta 3y ago
  Here's what ChatGPT spits out: https://chat.openai.com/share/89b37ac6-cbe1-4f07-b1dc-7736c5da53b5 https://chat.openai.com/share/89b37ac6-cbe1-4f07-b1dc-7736c5...
  - dougskinner 3y ago
    This reply seems very low effort and not helpful.
- gcanyon 3y ago
  I wrote it up here a long time ago: https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-desktop-and-downloads-folder/ https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-des... I've made changes since then and I haven't documented them :-/ I'll try to find the time to write it up.

bobbylarrybobby 3y ago

Not a specific automation, but the ability to run automations upon receiving an email lets you do some very cool stuff. For instance, I forward emails to a particular alias of mine, which kicks off a shortcut that adds the email to my reminders. But since you have access to the email body you could really do anything.

CraigJPerry 3y ago

Podcasts in the shower: on bluetooth speaker connect, add 15 mins to the current time, set focus mode that ignores everyone until 15 mins later, resume podcasts playlist wherever it was left off. Only annoyance with this shortcut is it’ll pop up a notification to approve running the shortcut when it detects the speaker has been turned on. I have those cheap paper nfc stickers hidden in random spots around the house and we have the same shortcuts setup on our phones so we can add dog food/loo roll/cleaning supplies etc etc to the shared shopping list in todo. Similarly i like being able to tap my phone on the way out my home office to run script over ssh and shut everything down, turn off the lights and plugs etc

sintezcs 3y ago
What app are you using for shared shopping list?
- jrowley 3y ago
  Not OP but Apple’s native Reminders app supports shared lists.

Doe-_ 3y ago

I'm a deep sleeper and need several alarms to wake up. I have an automation which sets several at various increments, enables the sleep focus mode on my phone and sets the Home Assistant alarm script at that time too.

FractalHQ 3y ago
How’d you do this? I’ve got an alarm entry at every 10th minute of every hour from manually doing this over the years

fastily 3y ago

sort of an automation, but I install all my favorite apps with brew and then use brew again (brew upgrade && brew upgrade --cask -g) to update everything Bonus: I went the extra mile and wrote a script that bootstraps my entire setup: https://github.com/fastily/autobots/blob/master/macOS/setup/init.sh https://github.com/fastily/autobots/blob/master/macOS/setup/...

KolenCh 3y ago
Friends here: https://github.com/ickc/bootstrapping-os-environments/tree/master/macOS https://github.com/ickc/bootstrapping-os-environments/tree/m...
- leipert 3y ago
  Brew supports dumping installed things into a brewfile: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle I was using text files before as well to manage it.
  - KolenCh 3y ago
    Looks interesting for someone who wants to bootstrap only those "stores" they support, and want to write in a DSL that doesn't translate to other usage scenarios. Don't get me wrong, it serves the general users with 4.6k stars, must be very useful for many people. But mine only serves me and serves me better than that—not that my code is better, but because I know what I need.

bobx11 3y ago

I have a cron job taking a picture of my desktop four times per minute into a dated folder structure. It allows me to zoom back in time (days out weeks back) to figure out what I was doing at a particular time or if I was showing someone a particular bit of code or something like that.

rmwaite 3y ago
Making this searchable for text would be the killer feature here.
tikkun 3y ago
Check out Rewind.ai! I used a similar app (Capturer.app) to do this automatically, and have since switched to Rewind - it's much better for my purposes.
- swah 3y ago
  But its constantly using 30% CPU... maybe the screenshot solution is lighter!
HAL9OOO 3y ago
Mind posting the script? How much space do the images end up taking per day roughly?

ikyriakidis 3y ago

1. Switch off wifi, bluetooth, enable battery save mode at night and re-enable them in the morning 2. Switch off mobile data when connecting to my home wifi 3. Automatically enable and disable orientation lock when entering the photos app

mdwalters 3y ago

I was bored, so I used my parent's work iPhone to make a shortcut that grabs Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, plus definitions. It's based on the one Apple pre-made, but sends notifications instead of that web preview thing. It's not automated (so my parents wouldn't know), and runs via a home screen widget.