Action Directory

The following is a documentation of the 300+ actions available in the Shortcuts app.

First, browse by the main Categories, or dive into a subcategory to see only a small subset actions.

Plus, check out my custom-tagged sorting for Actions by Types, Difficulty, and Prompt Type.

Make sure to check out Related Shortcuts for each action too.

Table of Contents

Actions by Category

Location

Get data from the world around you.

Sharing

Take your content & send it somewhere.

Web

Interact with the whole internet.

Media

Do more with photos/video, music/podcasts, and playback.

Documents

Work with words in your files, notes, and text.

Apps

Actions for Apple's default apps that you can take advantage of.

Scripting

Build intermediate to advanced workflows that get more done.

Actions by Difficultly Level

Some actions are more straightforward, while some take a bit to learn about and implement in your shortcuts.

Browse them depending your current comfort level, then move up a level to see what else is possible next:

Low

Simpler actions that are easier to use and more straightforward to set up right away.

Medium

Intermediate actions that have a few options to customize according to your needs.

High

Complex actions that work in specific ways and might take some trial-and-error.

Actions by Type

Actions generally come in three forms – actions from apps, actions for content, and scripting.

The following categories sort all the actions into these larger buckets, letting you browse depending on your targeted area:

Apps

Actions for interacting with the apps on your device to accomplish a specific goal.

Content

Data actions for working with file types to create something new or manipulate info.

Scripting

Powerful actions to solve dynamic processes or work across contexts.

Actions by Interaction Type

View all the Actions in Shortcuts by how interactive they are when the shortcut is running – will it prompt you, work in the background, or open an app?

These categories are particularly helpful for determining whether a shortcut is good for an automation or Siri, for example:

Opens App

Actions that move away from the current context into another app.

Background

Actions that fire off automatically in the background and never prompts.

Potential Prompt

Actions that may or not prompt for a response, depending on how it is set.

Asks Each Time

Actions that will definitely prompt for a response when the shortcut is run.