Shortcuts in iOS 26: Everything new coming to your iPhone, more

The Shortcuts app is getting several upgrades in iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe that unlock brand new possibilities for automation on Apple platforms. Here’s what’s coming.

Liquid Glass design and new icon

Shortcuts in iOS 26 starts with a new, updated app icon. Gone are the lighter blue colors of the past, replaced by a more consistent pink-purple look.

After opening the app, Liquid Glass makes Shortcuts feel refreshed in several ways too.

Shortcuts’ navigation tab bar is now floating and transparent thanks to Liquid Glass, and UI elements like buttons and menus have all been given a new design.

Powerful new Apple Intelligence actions

A major highlight of iOS 26’s Shortcuts app is the new set of Apple Intelligence actions.

When building a shortcut, there are now nine Apple Intelligence actions to choose from:

• Use Model
• Open Visual Intelligence
• Create Image
• Adjust Tone of Text
• Make List from Text
• Make Table from Text
• Proofread Text
• Rewrite Text
• Summarize Text

Many of these are self-explanatory, and use the Image Playground and Writing Tools features introduced last year.

But ‘Use Model’ is undoubtedly the most exciting of the new additions.

Shortcuts offers users the choice of three models:

1. Private Cloud Compute
2. On-Device Model
3. ChatGPT

As you can imagine, the ability to tap directly into the above models via Shortcuts opens a lot of new automation opportunities.

Per Apple’s press release:

For example, a student can build a shortcut that uses Apple Intelligence models to compare an audio transcription of a class lecture to the notes they took, and add any key points they may have missed. Users can also choose to tap into ChatGPT for its broad world knowledge and expertise.

iOS 26 also includes a handful of Apple Intelligence shortcuts ready for you in the Gallery section, such as a Morning Summary shortcut, one that suggests recipes for whatever ingredients you have, another that summarizes a PDF’s contents, and more.

Automation section arrives on the Mac

On iPhone and iPad, the Shortcuts app has long offered an Automation tab for running shortcuts automatically. Now, that option is coming to the Mac too.

macOS Tahoe introduces a new Automation section in Shortcuts where you can set shortcuts to trigger based on parameters like:

• time of day
• a file being moved into a specific folder
• external display connection
• and more

Mac users have long been able to perform automatic actions in the background via other means, but bringing the feature to the Shortcuts app is a welcome change.

What new Shortcuts app features are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments.

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