Introducing MultiButton: Assign two shortcuts to the same action button Press on iPhone 15 Pro

I got my iPhone 15 Pro Max last week and I love the capabilities offered by the Action button in combination with the Shortcuts app. But while I was playing around with different ideas for the action button, I had a thought:

Wouldn’t it be great if instead of just one shortcut I could switch between the two? two shortcuts with the same action button press? That’s exactly what my new one is Multiple buttons shortcut yes.

MultiButton allows you to assign two separate shortcuts to the action button. Unlike other solutions you may have seen where you always choose shortcuts from a menu, MultiButton automatically switches between two shortcuts when you press the Action button multiple times in quick succession. You don’t have to choose shortcuts from a list; just press the action button and MultiButton will take care of everything.

Allow me to explain how MultiButton works and how you can configure it for your action button. Plus, I’m also sharing some new shortcut ideas that you can use on your iPhone 15 Pro today.

Multiple buttons

The core idea behind MultiButton is this: you press the Action button the first time and a appears primary shortcut; if you press it again in a few seconds, it will become a subordinate shortcut. In fact, MultiButton lets you double the number of shortcuts you can assign to the action button, making you (hopefully) faster and more productive on your iPhone.

I created MultiButton because I wanted to perform two shortcuts with the same press of the Action button, but I didn’t want that always choose them from a menu. I wanted to define a “primary” shortcut that would be my default action button, plus one subordinate shortcut that would only run if I pressed the Action button again after a few seconds.

None of this would have been necessary if Apple had supported multiple gestures for the Action button, such as double and triple presses. Unfortunately, in this version of iOS 17 for the iPhone 15 Pro, the Action button can only be associated with one shortcut at a time. That seemed like something I could solve with some clever programming in Shortcuts.

The first time you download and install MultiButton, you will be asked to enter the two names of the shortcuts you want to run with it. In this step, pictured below, it is very important that you exactly names of the shortcuts you want to run with MultiButton. You can always change these keyboard shortcuts later in the MultiButton editor.

When you use MultiButton for the first time, you may also be asked to give permission to access a folder in iCloud Drive and run other shortcuts. Files/Finder access is necessary because MultiButton has a configuration file (called MultiButton.json) stored in iCloud Drive ⇾ Shortcuts. Don’t worry: MultiButton doesn’t read other files or contact third-party servers. It just needs to store a timestamp of the last time you used MultiButton.

You see, the “smart” tech behind MultiButton is that it uses Shortcuts’ built-in date calculations to understand whether you pressed the action button within 7 seconds from the last time you pressed it and performed a shortcut with it. If you do that, the shortcut will run the secondary shortcut instead of the primary. If you wait longer than 7 seconds, MultiButton will execute the default, primary shortcut instead.

The 7 second threshold is an arbitrary number I chose based on my real-world use of the action button. In most scenarios, I thought 7 seconds was short enough to press the Action button again, but not so long that you had to wait for MultiButton to “reset” the state. If you would like to change this time limit, you can do so via the ‘Quantity’ action above.

That’s all you need to know about MultiButton. There is nothing else to configure and no other actions to customize. Simply assign it as the action button shortcut in the Settings app, and you’re good to go.

Using shortcuts with MultiButton and the action button

I’m going to give you some examples about my own use of MultiButton. On my iPhone, I wanted a way to perform two actions with the same press of the action button:

• Save a short note by default;
• If I press the button again, a list of more shortcuts appears.

As you can see, this is what MultiButton does on my iPhone 15 Pro Max when I press the Action button a second time after running the first shortcut:

There are some technical details and limitations worth explaining here. For starters, you can’t press the Action button again while the first shortcut is still active. You must wait for the primary shortcut to run. On iOS, Shortcuts does not support running two shortcuts from the Action button at the same time. However, you can cancel the first shortcut (if it has a ‘Cancel’ button) and press the Action button again; in that case, the secondary one will still be activated even if you canceled the first shortcut.

Additionally, the Action button provides a handy “Show Folder…” action for shortcuts that brings up this UI element:

Unfortunately, this new menu is exclusive to the Action Button Settings screen. There is no action in the Shortcuts app to replicate the look of this menu with rounded buttons and the ‘Open App’ launcher. I hope Apple will add this in the future; for now, the only way to get this menu is to choose it in the Settings app, in which case you won’t be able to use MultiButton.

However, there is a workaround I’ve implemented to simulate the same behavior, and it’s a simple shortcut I created called “Run Shortcut from Folder.” This shortcut allows you to select any folder in the Shortcuts app and run any of the shortcuts in that folder. It’s a handy way to access a “favorites” folder in the Shortcuts app and run one from MultiButton.

While I was putting MultiButton together, I also created some other shortcuts that would provide nice utilities for the Action Button. For example, my Pause Media shortcut uses the free Actions app to detect if audio is playing and, if so, pause playback via the Action button.

I find myself taking and sharing a lot of screenshots on my iPhone every day, so I created some shortcuts to speed up the process via the Action button. The first, called ‘Take Screenshot and Share’, does exactly what it says on the tin: it takes a screenshot of what’s on the screen and immediately presents the share sheet to send the image to an app or someone else. This is a great way to assign as the primary keyboard shortcut in MultiButton.

A modified version of this shortcut, called ‘Screenshot, Markup, and Share’, lets you modify a screenshot using the native markup editing UI before passing it to the share sheet:

Finally, I realized I could get a little creative with the conditions in Shortcuts and put together a shortcut to open all my shutters with a press of the Action button, only when I’m on WiFi at home And if it is after 9am. The typical scenario: I wake up and as I stumble across the living room to turn on my espresso machine, I’m able to half-heartedly press the Action button to immediately open all the shutters and get some much-needed sunlight. That’s exactly what my ‘Blinds After 9’ shortcut does.

When you first run the shortcut, you will be asked to enter the name of your home Wi-Fi network and select a time for the blinds to open via HomeKit. My recommendation is to enter a date and time in natural language (such as “Today at 9am”), which Shortcuts will recognize. You will of course need to select the accessories you want to access via the ‘Control My Home’ action using your own HomeKit setup.

Download multi-button

Despite the poor state of the Shortcuts app in iOS 17, programming action buttons creates a great opportunity for both power and casual users to automate tasks on their iPhones with a single button press. And MultiButton lets you switch between two shortcuts instead of one, keeping the benefit of a standard ‘fallback’ shortcut, while also having a secondary shortcut ready to use with a second press of the Action button.

I have some other ideas about how we can develop MultiButton in the future and I am of course open to feedback and requests. In the meantime, you can download MultiButton below and find it, along with hundreds of other shortcuts and the additional shortcuts I mentioned above, in the MacStories Shortcuts Archive.

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