The Mac version of the Shortcuts app lacks one of the iPhone's best features: automation. The Mac app Shortery bridges this gap.
Shortcuts on iPhone offers an Automation tab that allows you to launch shortcuts automatically when something happens. For example, you can disable the alarm when you leave the house (I use this feature to turn off my cat's food alarm when I leave the house). The Automation tab is missing from the Mac, however, which is odd because Automator (the predecessor to Shortcuts) does offer some of these features - for example, you can use folder actions to trigger automation whenever a file is added to a folder. That solution still works, as Automator still exists, but it's understandable to prefer Shortcuts at this point - it's clearly the automation tool Apple is putting resources into right now.
This is where Shortery comes in. The app is free but offers extremely limited functionality - the full version costs $10. Using this app you can set custom rules to trigger shortcuts. There are 17 different categories of triggers, such as when folder contents change or a specific time of day.
You can set up rules and choose shortcuts to launch when these triggers occur. For example, suppose you want to print a document after adding it to a specific folder. First, you'll create a simple shortcut to print a document using your default printer. Next, you'll set up an automation in Shortery that will run whenever a new PDF is added to the folder.
When you have everything set up the way you like it and you're done, click Save : every PDF you add to the folder will print.
This is just an example. I set up an automation that will immediately start a Time Machine backup whenever I connect a backup drive. Lars Gerckens, a member of the two-person team that built Shortery, told me that users have set up automations to do things like control lights based on the time of day and automatically turn on Do Not Disturb mode when they're on site. office.
