How To Directly Access Threads Profiles Using Shortcuts

In learning about Threads' unique URL scheme, I've shared two shortcuts for accessing others' and your own profile directly in the app.

In Federico Viticciโ€™s post on Threader, a shortcut to open Threads profiles from Mastodon and Twitter directly in the Threads app, he mentioned in a footnote that Threadsโ€™ URL scheme uses the unique pattern barcelona:// โ€“ which immediately got my attention.

In the post, his excellent shortcut uses OCR to look at the deviceโ€™s screen and extract the username, before passing that into barcelona://user?username={Username}.

In my attempts to recreate my Twitter follow graph on Threads, I used Viticciโ€™s shortcut to capture as many links to Threads profiles that I come across โ€“ย many, many people were posting theirs on launch day, so I ran his shortcut a lot initially.

However, lots of people were (and still are) simply mentioning their profile or posting screenshots of the handle, like my friend Crim โ€“ so, I wanted to make another Shortcuts solution that let me type out any username and redirect into their profile.

My โ€œOpen username in Threadsโ€ shortcut will prompt you to enter in a username, then fills out a URL like barcelona://user?username=MatthewCassinelli โ€“ then, the Open URLs action activates the deep link and redirects you into the profile inside the Threads app, so you can follow the person.

Going further with the URL scheme, Viticci also followed up on Threads with yet another discovery โ€“ using barcelona://user redirects the app to account tab, making it easy to check your profile from Shortcuts โ€“ so I made that into a shortcut too.

Get these in my Threads folder of shortcuts โ€“ and make sure to check out my story on how to make Threads work well on iPad with Stage Manager.

Posts You Might Like

Apple posts Shortcuts release notes for iOS 16, 16.1, and 16.2
Apple has posted a support article covering what's new in Shortcuts in iOS 16.2, iOS 16.1, and iOS 16 (plus watchOS and macOS) โ€” I cover the main bullets from each release.
New in the Shortcuts Library: Bluesky shortcuts
These shortcuts for Bluesky work on the web and the app โ€“ jump directly into any section. Plus, build out your List dictionary.
Instapaper (Finally) Adds Tags for Better Organization ยป
Instapaper has added Tags on top of Folders for even better organization โ€“ and has teased a multi-column view.
Announcing the Shortcuts Catalog for iOS 14, feat. 300 shortcuts & 300 actions