Never give a belated birthday greeting again. If you have an iPhone, you have a built-in birthday butler who will wish your friends and family “Happy birthday!” for you.
Here’s how it works:
First, go to your Contacts. Select the special people in your life who mean the most to you. Then, make sure you fill out their birthday details (just the date and the month are required). Now, your iPhone will have the information it needs to get to work.
Then, go to Shortcuts and find the Birthday Today Shortcut. Or, click this link on your iPhone and it will take you to the shortcut.
Now, you can click the dots at the top of the Shortcut to customize your message. Pick what you want your message to say or stick with the automated text.
To make it run daily, tap Automation and Personal Automation within the Shortcuts app. Then, you can set up some rules, such as the time of day you want the message sent.
The Birthday Today shortcut appears to have been developed last year by Redditor and Shortcut enthusiast u/AlphaToast.
There are also many other little-known shortcuts that can simplify your life.
One popular shortcut will save you from the dreaded experience of your phone unexpectedly dying on you when you are nowhere near an outlet. With the Battery Status shortcut, you can get an alert whenever your phone needs to be charged. Choose the percentage you want to set the notification at as well as the custom alert you will get. It’s an easy hack if you are one of those people who always winds up with a dead phone battery at the most inopportune moments.
You just need to go into Shortcuts, tap Automation, then tap Personal Automation. Choose Battery Action, then pick the percentage you want to set for your reminder.
Next, choose Add Action. This will tell your phone what action you want it to perform when your battery hits that low point. It could be Siri saying “Charge me!” or a text notification.
This story was originally published by Bridget Sharkey at Simplemost.com.
Bridget Sharkey
