MEET THE DEVELOPER
3 Awesome Shortcuts
Sometimes taking a shortcut really is the best way to get a job done. The Shortcuts app—a favorite productivity tool on iPhone and iPad—lets you automate tasks across different apps, and with macOS Monterey these time-saving hacks have come to Mac as well.
We asked developers of some of the best apps on Mac to share a custom shortcut to get started. Add them to your collection by clicking the links below. (The first time you run a shortcut, it will ask for permission to access the requested data; choose Always Allow or Allow.)
Blaze through photo edits
Pixelmator Pro has enough advanced photo-editing features for professional photographers to feel right at home. But machine-learning-enabled tools like ML Enhance and the amazing Repair Tool let anyone refine their photos with a few clicks.
These one-click tools are perfect for use with shortcuts, says developer Andrius Gailiunas, because you can integrate them into larger image-editing workflows.
But the app’s support for shortcuts goes far beyond the basics. Automate everything from applying color-adjustment presets (for, say, a classic-film look) to optimizing exported images for the web. “Developing the features themselves was incredibly difficult,” Gailiunas says. “But bringing them over to shortcuts was easy.”
One to try: The Remove Background shortcut removes the background layer in a Portrait mode photo by automating three steps: separating the foreground and background layers of the image, replacing the background with a transparent layer, and saving the result as a new photo in the format of your choice.
Fly through your to-dos with Things
Things 3 keeps your ever-growing to-do list manageable by letting you focus on the tasks you can accomplish right now. (Everything else pops up later, when the time is right.)
Cofounder Werner Jainek says shortcuts make capturing to-dos with pre-filled details even easier. And now that the feature is available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, your Things shortcuts sync everywhere. “This is a huge deal,” says Jainek.
One to try: The Add To Do shortcut streamlines a repetitive workflow by bringing up Things’ Quick Entry dialog with some fields pre-filled: When you first add the shortcut, you can choose a default list, tags, and start day (say, “in a week” or “next Friday”) for new tasks.
Kick-start your diary entry with Ulysses
By letting you hide format bars, inspectors, and other distractions, Ulysses is all about helping you focus on what matters: your writing. You can set character, word, and page goals to keep yourself on track, but otherwise it’s just you and your words.
That focus makes Ulysses ideal for daily journaling, and as cofounder Max Seelemann explains it, “Shortcuts are for things you do often.” Clearly the two are a perfect fit.
One to try: Seelemann suggests reinforcing your journaling habit with the Daily Notes shortcut, which creates a new document pre-filled with key info—the current date, your location, and the weather—and prompts you to choose an optional photo from your Photos library. “When you go to write, you have something already prepared.”