How to use shortcuts on Apple Watch

Love using shortcut automations on your iPhone? The Apple Watch Shortcuts app lets you trigger shortcuts right from your wrist. And since the shortcuts run on the watch itself, there’s no need to touch your iPhone.

Apple Watch users running watchOS 7 and later can access the Shortcuts app on their mobile. It works seamlessly with the Shortcuts app on the iPhone.

The Shortcuts app automatically categorizes shortcuts that can work on Apple Watch and makes them available on your wrist. This means that you won’t need to create separate shortcuts just for your Apple Watch.

Shortcuts can be triggered from both the Shortcuts app and the watch face complications. But if you trigger the shortcut from the watch face, you must first confirm by pressing a “Run” button.

View and manage Apple Watch shortcuts on iPhone

You can find all of the shortcuts supported by Apple Watch in a separate folder in your Shortcuts Library. To access it, open the “Shortcuts” application on your iPhone. You can do this easily by using the Spotlight search feature. Swipe down on your home screen, find the Shortcuts app and select it.

Now go to the “My shortcuts” tab.

Here, tap on the “Shortcuts” button in the upper left corner.

Choose the “Apple Watch” folder.

You will see all the shortcuts compatible with Apple Watch here.

If you have dozens of shortcuts, you will find that most of them are supported on Apple Watch. Fortunately, removing shortcuts from Apple Watch folder is quite easy.

RELATED: How to Open Apps, Websites, and Shortcuts from Search on iPhone and iPad

Just press the “Select” button at the top.

Then tap on the shortcuts you want to remove and hit the “Remove” button on the bottom toolbar.

Now press the “Done” button to save the changes.

Adding an iPhone shortcut to the Apple Watch is also pretty straightforward.

Go to the “My Shortcuts” tab and find the shortcut you want to add to your Apple Watch. Then press the three-dot menu button in the upper right corner of the shortcut.

Here, tap the three-dot menu button in the upper right corner again.

Tap the toggle next to the “Show on Apple Watch” option.

You can now press the “Done” button to save the option.

And again, press the “Done” button on the shortcut to save it.

Trigger shortcuts on Apple Watch

Now that you know what shortcuts are available on Apple Watch, it’s time to use them. This can be done using the Shortcuts app.

On your Apple Watch, press the digital crown to display the apps screen. Now open the “Shortcuts” application.

You will now see a simple list of all your shortcuts. Use the digital crown to scroll through the list. Just press a shortcut to run it.

If the shortcut is simple and requires no input, it will run automatically. If it requires entry, you will be prompted to make the selection in the Shortcuts app itself.

And it’s as easy as triggering shortcuts from Apple Watch.

Trigger shortcuts from a watch face

The Shortcuts app is pretty straightforward, but there’s an even faster way to trigger shortcuts. And that uses the watch face complication. Thanks to the new complication frame, you can add multiple complications from the same app to the watch face.

This means that you can create a watch face with up to eight shortcuts (using the Infograph watch face).

To add a shortcut (or the Shortcuts app) as a complication, long press the face of the watch and then tap the “Edit” button.

Slide your finger to the left to access the “Complications” section and select the complication you want to change.

Use the digital crown to scroll through the list. Here, find the “Shortcuts” section. You will now see the first three shortcuts available here. Press the “Move” button to see all available shortcuts.

Now you can choose a particular shortcut that you want to add to the watch face. To create a complication for the Shortcuts application itself, go to the bottom of this list and choose the “Shortcuts” option.

You can repeat this process to add other complications. When you’re done, double-tap the digital crown to return to the watch face.

To trigger the shortcut, just tap the shortcut on the watch face. Then press the “Run” button to run the shortcut.

---

Do you like using different dials throughout the day? Here’s how to use the hotkey automation feature to automatically change your Apple Watch faces based on the time of day.

RELATED: How to automatically change the face of your Apple Watch during the day