Automation & Scripting

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Learn about scripting languages and automation frameworks available on the platform to automate repetitive tasks.

Automation & Scripting Documentation

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INStartCallIntent requires unlock when device is face down with AirPods
When my Intents extension resolves an INStartCallIntent and returns .continueInApp while the device is locked, the call does not proceed unless the user unlocks the device. After unlocking, the app receives the NSUserActivity and CallKit proceeds normally. My expectation is that the native CallKit outgoing UI should appear and the call should start without requiring unlock — especially when using AirPods, where attention is not available. Steps to Reproduce Pair and connect AirPods. Lock the iPhone. Start music playback (e.g. Apple Music). Place the phone face down (or cover Face ID sensors so attention isn’t available). Say: “Hey Siri, call Tommy with DiscoMonday(My app name).” Observed Behavior Music mutes briefly. Siri says “Calling Tommy with DiscoMonday.” Lock screen shows “Require Face ID / passcode.” After several seconds, music resumes. The app is not launched, no NSUserActivity is delivered, and no CXStartCallAction occurs. With the phone face up, the same phrase launches the app, triggers CXStartCallAction, and the call proceeds via CallKit after faceID. Expected Behavior From the lock screen, Siri should hand off INStartCallIntent to the app, which immediately requests CXStartCallAction and drives the CallKit UI (reportOutgoingCall(...startedConnectingAt:) → ...connectedAt:), without requiring device unlock, regardless of orientation or attention availability when AirPods are connected.
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334
Sep ’25
How do I flatten a PDF using Shortcuts or Automator?
Looking for any method to quickly flatten a PDF without opening Preview and without installing 3 party software. Any ideas? Save as PDF in Preview works, but I don't want to have to open Preview each time I need to do this. The Create PDF action which appears in Finder when you select 2 or more PDFs flattens PDFs, but it requires me to select 2 or more files, and I generally don't want to combine PDFs--I simply wish to flatten a PDF. Most Automator and Shortcuts options I am aware of do not flatten PDFs, and in some cases, strip out form field data from PDFs.
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543
Oct ’25
How to properly localise AppShortcutPhrase?
Hi, I have AppShortcutsProvider in my app target(not as a separate extension) to support Siri command. It is working perfectly in English, but I would also like to add a localisation on it as my app supports multiple languages. struct MyShortcuts: AppShortcutsProvider { static let shortcutTileColor: ShortcutTileColor = .grape static var appShortcuts: [AppShortcut] { AppShortcut( intent: NextClassAppIntents(), phrases: [ "What is my next class in \(.applicationName)?", "What's the next class in \(.applicationName)?", "Next class in \(.applicationName)." ], shortTitle: "Next Class", systemImageName: "calendar.badge.clock" ) } } Xcode String Catalog was doing great jobs, It also detected shortTitle automatically and added that to the Catalog. However, I don't see localisation for those phrases anywhere in the String Catalog and when I try to use String(localized: ), compiler gives me an error. How can I properly localise AppShortcutPhrase?
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227
Oct ’25
Press return
Here is the appleScript part of my script: tell application "Finder" activate open application file "Messages.app" of folder "Applications" of folder "System" of startup disk end tell What I need is a step to send the message already inside the Mesage.app. The message is ready to send. I just would like a step that will act as "Return" to send the message. Again I have already prepared message to send but just need a step to send the message. Is there a possible step to perform the" Return" command to iMessage?
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300
Nov ’25
Is calling different SBApplication objects from different threads bad?
Not quite but maybe sorta related to the errOSAInternalTableOverflow problem I asked about in a different thread, this one deals with crashes our app gets (and much more frequently lately after recent OS updates (15.7.3) are OK'd by our IT department). Our app can run multiple jobs concurrently, each in their own NSOperation. Each op creates its own SBApplication instance that controls unique instances of InDesignServer. What I'm seeing recently is lots of crashes happening while multiple ops are calling into ScriptingBridge. Shown at the bottom is one of the stack crawls from one of the threads. I've trimmed all but the last of our code. Other threads have a similar stack crawl. In searching for answers, Google's AI overview mentions "If you must use multiple threads, ensure that each thread creates its own SBApplication instance…" Which is what we do. No thread can reach another thread's SBApplication instance. Is that statement a lie? Do I need to lock around every ScriptingBridge call (which is going to severely slow things down)? 0 AE 0x1a7dba8d4 0x1a7d80000 + 239828 1 AE 0x1a7d826d8 AEProcessMessage + 3496 2 AE 0x1a7d8f210 0x1a7d80000 + 61968 3 AE 0x1a7d91978 0x1a7d80000 + 72056 4 AE 0x1a7d91764 0x1a7d80000 + 71524 5 CoreFoundation 0x1a0396a64 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 28 6 CoreFoundation 0x1a03969f8 __CFRunLoopDoSource0 + 172 7 CoreFoundation 0x1a0396764 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 232 8 CoreFoundation 0x1a03953b8 __CFRunLoopRun + 840 9 CoreFoundation 0x1a03949e8 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 572 10 AE 0x1a7dbc108 0x1a7d80000 + 246024 11 AE 0x1a7d988fc AESendMessage + 4724 12 ScriptingBridge 0x1ecb652ac -[SBAppContext sendEvent:error:] + 80 13 ScriptingBridge 0x1ecb5eb4c -[SBObject sendEvent:id:keys:values:count:] + 216 14 ScriptingBridge 0x1ecb6890c -[SBCommandThunk invoke:] + 376 15 CoreFoundation 0x1a037594c ___forwarding___ + 956 16 CoreFoundation 0x1a03754d0 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 96 17 RRD 0x1027fca18 -[AppleScriptHelper runAppleScript:withSubstitutionValues:usingSBApp:] + 1036
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20h
AppIntents EntityPropertyQuery, how does "Filter Entity where" work?
When you correctly implement EntityPropertyQuery on an AppEntity, Shortcuts will expose a "Find Entity" action that calls into entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:). This is demoed in the "Dive into App Intents" session and works as expected. However, with this action, you can change the "All Entity" input to a list variable which changes the action text from "Find All Entity" to "Filter Entity where" still giving you the same filter, sort and limit options. This appears to work as expected too. But, what's unexpected is that this filter action does not appear to call any method on my AppEntity code. It doesn't call entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:). One would think there would need to be a filter(entities:matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:) to implement this functionality. But Shortcut just seems to do it all on it's own. I'm mostly wondering, how is this even working? Here's some example code: import AppIntents let books = [ BookEntity(id: 0, title: "A Family Affair"), BookEntity(id: 1, title: "Atlas of the Heart"), BookEntity(id: 2, title: "Atomic Habits"), BookEntity(id: 3, title: "Memphis"), BookEntity(id: 4, title: "Run Rose Run"), BookEntity(id: 5, title: "The Maid"), BookEntity(id: 6, title: "The Match"), BookEntity(id: 7, title: "Where the Crawdads Sing"), ] struct BookEntity: AppEntity, Identifiable { static var typeDisplayRepresentation: TypeDisplayRepresentation = "Book" var displayRepresentation: DisplayRepresentation { DisplayRepresentation(title: "\(title)") } static var defaultQuery = BookQuery() var id: Int @Property(title: "Title") var title: String init(id: Int, title: String) { self.id = id self.title = title } } struct BookQuery: EntityQuery { func entities(for identifiers: [Int]) async throws -> [BookEntity] { return identifiers.map { id in books[id] } } } extension BookQuery: EntityPropertyQuery { static var properties = QueryProperties { Property(\BookEntity.$title) { EqualToComparator { str in { book in book.title == str } } ContainsComparator { str in { book in book.title.contains(str) } } } } static var sortingOptions = SortingOptions { SortableBy(\BookEntity.$title) } func entities( matching comparators: [(BookEntity) -> Bool], mode: ComparatorMode, sortedBy: [Sort<BookEntity>], limit: Int? ) async throws -> [BookEntity] { books.filter { book in comparators.allSatisfy { comparator in comparator(book) } } } } The example Shortcut first invokes entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:) with comparators=[], sortedBy=[], limit=nil to fetch all Book entities. Next the filter step correctly applies the title contains filter but never calls entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:) or even the body of the ContainsComparator. But the output is correctly filtered.
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1.7k
Jul ’25
A script to open files from Finder in Vim
Here is an AppleScript script to make it possible double-click files in Finder so that they will be opened in Vim, by Normen Hansen: https://github.com/normen/vim-macos-scripts/blob/master/open-file-in-vim.applescript (it must be used from Automator). I try to simplify it and also to make it possible to use it without Automator. To use my own version, you only need to save it as application instead, like this: osacompile -o open-with-vim.app open-with-vim.applescript and then copy it to /Applications and set your .txt files to be opened using this app. Here it is, it alsmost works: -- https://github.com/normen/vim-macos-scripts/blob/master/open-file-in-vim.applescript -- opens Vim with file or file list -- sets current folder to parent folder of first file on open theFiles set command to {} if input is null or input is {} or ((item 1 in input) as string) is "" then -- no files, open vim without parameters set end of command to "vim;exit" else set firstFile to (item 1 of theFiles) as string tell application "Finder" to set pathFolderParent to quoted form of (POSIX path of ((folder of item firstFile) as string)) set end of command to "cd" &amp; space &amp; (pathFolderParent as string) set end of command to ";hx" -- e.g. vi or any other command-line text editor set fileList to {} repeat with i from 1 to (theFiles count) set end of fileList to space &amp; quoted form of (POSIX path of (item i of theFiles as string)) end repeat set end of command to (fileList as string) set end of command to ";exit" -- if Terminal &gt; Settings &gt; Profiles &gt; Shell &gt; When the shell exits != Don't close the window end if set command to command as string set myTab to null tell application "Terminal" if it is not running then set myTab to (do script command in window 1) else set myTab to (do script command) end if activate end tell return end open The only problem is the if block in the very beginning: if input is null or input is {} or ((item 1 in input) as string) is "" then What is wrong here? How to make it work? (Assuming it already works fine if AppleScript is used using Automator.)
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301
Mar ’25
WidgetInfo - intent is nil until edit face
We have a watchOS app that provides many configurable widgets. Those widgets are configured and installed with help of AppIntent: public struct RectComplAppIntent: AppIntent, WidgetConfigurationIntent, CustomIntentMigratedAppIntent { @Parameter(title: "Style") var style: String? .... } However when I print WidgetInfos with getCurrentConfigurations(), I sometimes got nil for configuration. At the same time widgets are not loaded. Exact steps: User installs the pre-cofnigured .watchface. Complications are not loaded since configuration is missing. I print getCurrentConfigurations() and get entries like this: WidgetInfo: - configuration: nil - widgetConfigurationIntent: nil - family: accessoryRectangular - kind: Rectangle Then user force-touches a face and opens editing mode. Returns to watch app, prints infos: WidgetInfo: - configuration: <INIntent: 0x780d290> { style = vol1Logo; } - widgetConfigurationIntent: nil - family: accessoryRectangular - kind: Rectangle – Suddenly intent appears with the correct style and complications start to show up. How do you think, why it happens? Why after .watchface install all the WidgetInfo has nil intent (configuration)? What helps them to load later? You can try this face yourself: https://cdn.watchfaces.co/watchfaces/glance-minimalist.watchface
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363
Mar ’25
Start multiple Live Activities in the perform() of App Intents
In my case, when two functions that start each Live Activity(not connected each other) are performed in LiveActivityIntent's perform(), it seems that only one will start. (It's the same to start independently with two Task{}) And, set one to 'opensIntent' and separate it by opening another LiveActivityIntent, the result is same. Also, every time I tap the Intent directly in the shortcut app, one activity will end within a matter of seconds, even if there are two for a while. But, If openAppWhenRun to true, it seem to works without any problems. I would appreciate it if you could give me a tip to fix this problem.
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221
Mar ’25
Using Automator
Hi Here is my problem. I have a large number of portrait pictures in my adobe lightroom catalogue which I need to email to the subjects of the portraits. These peoples names and email addresses are stored in my pictures metadata and I am able to export the pictures with accompanying text or CSV files containing the names &amp; addresses. What I want to do is export the pictures in bulk and automagically create and send individual emails for each picture, preferably with the persons name in the salutation at the start of the email. I have done some googling trying to find a solution to this. I think that I need to use automator. (The lightroom option of mailing directly from within the programme isn't going to do the job, each mail would need to be addressed and written by hand each time). I have been playing around with it, but can see no way to populate the email address field or add the attachment. Can anyone help me out, with even just the basic outline, of how this would be achieved please?
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188
Mar ’25
Siri Shortcut Phrases iOS -17
I made a set of Siri Shortcuts in my app with the AppShortcutsProvider, and they each have a set of phrases. I can activate the shortcuts via Siri phrases or Spotlight search on iOS 18+, but not on iOS -17. I've checked the documentation and see that AppShortcutsProvider is supported from iOS 16+, so I don't understand why I can't view the shortcuts in Spotlight or activate them with Siri unless it's at least iOS 18. Any thoughts?
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459
Mar ’25
Displaying an email in mail preview pane by message ID
Hi, I want to open an email message with AppleScript. Everything is working correctly, but in the Mail app, instead of focusing on targetMessage, it highlights the email after the target message. When I use: tell targetMessage to open the correct email opens in new window but the wrong email is highlighted in the Mail app list. tell application "Mail" activate set targetAccount to missing value repeat with anAccount in every account if name of anAccount is "AccountName" then set targetAccount to anAccount exit repeat end if end repeat if targetAccount is not missing value then set targetBox to missing value repeat with aBox in mailboxes of targetAccount if name of aBox is "MailboxName" then set targetBox to aBox exit repeat end if end repeat if targetBox is not missing value then set targetMessage to missing value set oneWeekAgo to (current date) - (7 * days) set filteredMessages to (every message of targetBox whose date received ≥ oneWeekAgo) repeat with aMessage in filteredMessages try if message id of aMessage is "MessageID" then set targetMessage to aMessage exit repeat end if end try end repeat if targetMessage is not missing value then if (count of message viewers) > 0 then set mailViewer to message viewer 1 else set mailViewer to make new message viewer end if tell mailViewer set selected mailboxes to {targetBox} delay 0.2 set selected messages to {targetMessage} end tell return "Found" else return "Message Not found" end if else return "Folder Not found" end if else return "Account Not found" end if end tell Why is this behavior happening?
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269
Mar ’25
AppIntent, should I delete previous donations to the system and how?
Hi, In my application I am donating AppIntent instances that I have to the system using the donate() API. I recently came across this article that talks about deleting donations but it does not mention how to handle AppIntent instances. I am wondering when working with dynamic AppIntents (with different properties that can change in the future), should I be worried about "outdated" donated AppIntent instances? And if yes how can I delete previously donated AppIntent instances.
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237
Mar ’25
Difficulties with Get Contents of URL
I’ve created several shortcuts that tell me the stock price of a given company. The shortcut queries Yahoo Finance using Get Contents of URL, with the URL https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TICKER SYMBOL/, for example https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PLTR/ for Palantir or https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/ for Apple, etc. Then it uses RegEx to parse out the numbers which it then formats and displays in a notification. Simple. It works great for several stocks, but for some reason, it does not work correctly for Palantir. It shows an older “previous close” price. Oddly, when I go to the website myself, it shows me the current stock price. So for today Mar 21 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PLTR/ shows me $90.96 (correct) but the shortcut, via Get Contents of URL, shows $87.39 (incorrect). This $87.39 price is listed further down in the page as a "previous close” price. I don’t get it. Here is a link to my Palantir shortcut: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/edea6ee0261245f49b078efc74d632dd Here is a link to my Apple shortcut: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/54a416393203432aa356fe76373e3f8b So the question is, why does Get Contents of URL show an old stock price but when I go to the site myself, it shows the correct stock price … and only for Palantir? I have about six shortcuts running correctly. Palantir is the only one that does not work. Been banging my head on this one for weeks. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you, Rob
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88
Mar ’25
NSUserActivity in application(_:continue:restorationHandler:) not recognized as INStartCallIntent
Hello, experts! I'm working on a VOIP application that handles audio calls and integrates with CallKit. The problem occurs when attempting to redial a previously made audio call from the system's call history. When I try to handle the NSUserActivity in the application(_:continue:restorationHandler:) method, it intercepts the INStartAudioCallIntent instead of the expected INStartCallIntent. Background Deprecation Warnings: I'm encountering deprecation warnings when using INStartAudioCallIntent and INStartVideoCallIntent: 'INStartAudioCallIntent' was deprecated in iOS 13.0: INStartAudioCallIntent is deprecated. Please adopt INStartCallIntent instead. 'INStartVideoCallIntent' was deprecated in iOS 13.0: INStartVideoCallIntent is deprecated. Please adopt INStartCallIntent instead. As a result, I need to migrate to INStartCallIntent instead, but the issue is that when trying to redial a call from the system’s call history, INStartAudioCallIntent is still being triggered. Working with Deprecated Intents: If I use INStartAudioCallIntent or INStartVideoCallIntent, everything works as expected, but I want to adopt INStartCallIntent to align with the current iOS recommendations. Configuration: CXProvider Configuration: The CXProvider is configured as follows: let configuration = CXProviderConfiguration() configuration.supportsVideo = true configuration.maximumCallsPerCallGroup = 1 configuration.maximumCallGroups = 1 configuration.supportedHandleTypes = [.generic] configuration.iconTemplateImageData = UIImage(asset: .callKitLogo)?.pngData() let provider = CXProvider(configuration: configuration) Outgoing Call Handle: When making an outgoing call, the CXHandle is created like this: let handle = CXHandle(type: .generic, value: callId) Info.plist Configuration: In the info.plist, the following key is defined: &lt;key&gt;NSUserActivityTypes&lt;/key&gt; &lt;array&gt; &lt;string&gt;INStartCallIntent&lt;/string&gt; &lt;/array&gt; Problem: When trying to redial the audio call from the system's call history, the NSUserActivity received in the application(_:continue:restorationHandler:) method is an instance of INStartAudioCallIntent instead of INStartCallIntent. This happens even though INStartCallIntent is listed in NSUserActivityTypes in the info.plist and I want to migrate to the newer intent as recommended in iOS 13+. Device: iPhone 13 mini iOS version 17.6.1
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244
Mar ’25