Taking Shortcuts: Making the Most of macOS Shortcuts

What if your Mac could take care of some of those repetitive tasks you do every day?

I recently developed a professional learning session, designed to help educators explore the macOS Shortcuts app and discover ways to simplify everyday tasks, automate routines, and make their Macs work a little harder for them!

The session introduces educators to the Shortcuts app, explores where shortcuts can be found and accessed, and provides opportunities to build and customize shortcuts of their own.

🍎 A Quick Note: This session was created using macOS 27 Golden Gate, which includes updates to the Shortcuts app, including built-in automations and Apple Intelligence features. If you haven't upgraded yet, your Shortcuts app may look a little different, and some features may not be available.

Presentation & Resources

This presentation walks participants through the basics of Shortcuts, including navigating the app, exploring the Gallery, accessing shortcuts in different locations, and creating shortcuts using Apple Intelligence.

Throughout the presentation, I incorporate several live demonstrations:

• Between Slides 2–3: Run my Start My Day shortcut (linked below) to demonstrate how multiple everyday actions can be combined into a single shortcut.
• After Slide 5: Take a quick tour of the Shortcuts Gallery to explore Apple's collection of ready-made shortcuts.
• After Slide 6: Explore the All Shortcuts library, including how shortcuts are organized and managed.
• After Slide 7: Demonstrate the different places I've made my Start My Day shortcut accessible, including widgets and other locations. Show participants how to recognize the Shortcuts icon when exploring their Macs.
• At Slide 11: Demonstrate creating a shortcut using Apple Intelligence, showing how a natural-language description can help generate a starting point for a new shortcut.

These demonstrations help participants see Shortcuts in action before they begin building their own.

Choose Your Own Adventure

After exploring the basics (Slides 1-9), attendees get to choose their own path! I created Choose Your Own Adventure handouts that guide educators through building shortcuts while allowing them to explore features that interest them. The goal is to provide enough structure for someone opening Shortcuts for the first time while still encouraging experimentation and customization.

Ready-to-Use Shortcuts

To help educators get started, I've created 12 shortcuts that demonstrate different ways to make everyday tasks a little easier. Whether you're looking to automate your morning routine, organize files, or simplify classroom tasks, there's something here to explore!

Each shortcut can be downloaded and customized to fit your own workflow.

🍎 Daily Routines & Productivity

• Start My Day: Kick off your morning by opening your frequently used apps, websites, and resources with a single click.
• Task Reminders: Enter a task, estimate how long it will take, and set a deadline. The shortcut calculates when you should start working and creates reminders to keep you on track.
• Tomorrow's Events: Automatically get a quick preview of what's coming up tomorrow by pulling upcoming events from your calendar at a specific time of day.
• Open Attendance: Quickly access your attendance page without having to navigate through multiple websites. Scheduled to open automatically after the first 5 minutes of each class period (for my school district's schedule and attendance URL).
• Presentation Ready: Get your Mac ready to present by adjusting your preferred settings and minimizing distractions. Can be automated using "When display is connected" action.
• Custom Timer: Enter a duration and start a timer without navigating through another app.

📚 Classroom & Instructional Tools

• Text Leveler: Use AI to adjust the reading level of selected or copied text, making instructional materials more accessible to different learners. The results of this shortcut (both original and level text) are added into a new note.
• Make QR Code: Quickly turn a website link into a QR code that can be shared with students or added to classroom materials. (Not one I made, just a good one from the gallery!)
• Read Aloud from Clipboard: Copy text from nearly anywhere on your Mac and have it read aloud.

🧹 Digital Organization & Cleanup

• Clean Up Screenshots: Deletes selected screenshots so they aren't scattered across your Desktop.
• Clean Up Files: Save some digital storage by locating a folder, finding large files, and selecting which ones to keep and toss.
• Delete Old Downloads: Find and remove outdated downloads to help keep your Mac organized. Review the files before deleting anything you may still need.

Make Them Your Own!

The best part about Shortcuts is that they aren't one-size-fits-all. Once you've added a shortcut, you can open it in the Shortcuts app, explore how it works, and adjust the actions to fit your needs. Some shortcuts may require you to replace links, select folders, grant permissions, or configure your own settings before running them.

💡 My Biggest Takeaway

One of my favorite things about Shortcuts is that you don't have to build something complicated for it to be useful. Sometimes a shortcut is as simple as opening the resources you use every morning. Other times, it's a multi-step workflow that handles something you would normally do manually. I wanted this session to encourage educators to think about those little tasks they repeat throughout the day and ask themselves, "Could I make my Mac do that for me?"

Feel free to use, modify, or share these resources with educators in your own schools!

I'd also love to hear: What's one shortcut you use that makes your teaching day easier?