Backing up Shorcuts

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve spent a fair bit of time crafting iOS shortcuts to streamline your daily routine. Perhaps you’ve built a shortcut that compiles your morning news and weather in one tap, or maybe you’ve created a detailed workflow that organises work-from-home tasks, so you never miss a beat. Whatever your speciality, those meticulously arranged shortcuts represent a big investment of time, thought, and creativity.

Now, imagine losing them all due to a device glitch, a failed update, or an unexpected mishap. Painful thought, isn’t it? The good news is you can avoid that scenario entirely by creating a backup shortcut that automates the process of storing all your existing shortcuts in iCloud Drive. With a single tap—or even better, on a set schedule—you’ll zip them into a neat little file and keep them safe, sound, and easily restorable should anything go wrong.

In this post, I’ll guide you through building this meta-shortcut and explain how to set it up so that it runs automatically once a day. By the time you’re done, you’ll have a simple insurance policy for your digital workflows, ensuring that restoring them is as painless as tapping a file.

Why Backing Up Your Shortcuts Matters

We often think about backing up photos, documents, and contacts, but shortcuts can slip under the radar. Yet shortcuts can be incredibly valuable—they are the little helpers that manage our daily routines, prompt us with reminders, and connect the dots between multiple apps.

If your device acts up, or you accidentally delete a much-loved shortcut, you’re left with the daunting task of reconstructing it from memory. By having a backup on hand, you eliminate that risk. Restoring your entire library (or even just one shortcut) is as easy as unzipping a file and opening a .shortcut item. It’s a five-minute setup that can save you hours of heartache down the line.

What This Shortcut Does

This Shortcut performs four key actions:

1. Identifies Your Device: It fetches your device name, so you can neatly label your backups. If you own multiple Apple devices, you’ll appreciate knowing exactly which backups came from which gadget.

2. Gathers Every Shortcut You Own: Instead of tediously exporting each shortcut individually, one tap rounds them all up—every single one of your “All Shortcuts” collection is accounted for.

3. Zips Them Up: Your .shortcut files are compressed into a single .zip file. Think of this like bundling all your recipe cards into one folder, making them much easier to store, share, and restore.

4. Saves Them to iCloud: The .zip file is placed in your chosen iCloud Drive folder. Apple’s cloud storage syncs the file across all your devices, and it’s backed up by Apple’s servers—practically bomb-proof in digital terms.

Building the Backup Shortcut

1. Get the Device Name:

In the Shortcuts app, create a new shortcut and add “Get Device Name.” This action grabs the name of your device (e.g., “Alice’s iPhone”).

2. Retrieve Your Shortcuts:

Add “Get Shortcuts from All Shortcuts.” This action pulls in the entire list of shortcuts on your device, preparing them for archiving.

3. Make a Zip Archive:

Add the “Make Archive” (or “Make .zip Archive”) action. Set its input to be the list of shortcuts you just retrieved. Now all your shortcuts are bundled into one tidy .zip file.

4. Save the Archive to iCloud:

Finally, add “Save File” and pick a folder in iCloud Drive—many people stick with the “Shortcuts” folder. If you’d like, use a “Text” action or a “Date” action before “Save File” to create a filename like “Alice’s iPhone Shortcuts Backup 2024-12-07.zip.”

When you run the shortcut, it compiles all your shortcuts, archives them, and saves the file to iCloud. Just like that, you’ve got a backup.

Restoring Your Shortcuts

If you ever need to bring one or all of your shortcuts back:

1. Open the Files app and find the .zip file.

2. Tap it to decompress—it will create a folder containing all the .shortcut files.

3. Open any .shortcut file to view it in the Shortcuts app.

4. Tap “Add Shortcut” and it’s restored to your library.

Simple, right?

Setting Up Regular Backups

While on-demand backups are great, the real magic happens when you automate the process so it runs regularly, say once a day. Daily backups might sound like overkill, but consider this: your shortcuts can change frequently, especially if you’re prone to tinkering or adding new shortcuts for different tasks. Having a daily snapshot means you’re always just hours away from a fresh restore point.

Here’s how to set up a timed automation:

1. Open the Shortcuts App and Tap ‘Automation’:

At the bottom of the Shortcuts app screen, you’ll see “Automation.” Tap on it to start creating a schedule.

2. Create a Personal Automation:

Tap the “+” icon and choose “Create Personal Automation.”

3. Select a Time of Day:

From the list of triggers, choose “Time of Day.” Pick a time that’s convenient and unobtrusive—perhaps just before bed, or early in the morning. Daily triggers are ideal if you want frequent backups.

4. Select Your Shortcut:

Once you’ve chosen a time, tap “Next.” On the following screen, tap “Add Action.”

Search for “Run Shortcut” and select it. In the “Run Shortcut” action, tap the placeholder and choose your newly created backup shortcut from the list.

5. Review Your Automation Settings:

Once your time and shortcut are set, tap “Next.” You’ll see a summary of the automation. Toggle off “Ask Before Running” if you want it to run silently. (Keep in mind, for certain actions, iOS might still show a notification when the automation runs, but it won’t require interaction.)

6. Tap ‘Done’:

After reviewing, tap “Done.” You now have a scheduled automation that will run your backup shortcut at the chosen time each day.

The next time that scheduled time rolls around, your iOS device will run the backup shortcut automatically, ensuring you have a fresh .zip backup of your shortcuts each day.

Scenarios Where This Shortcut Shines

1. Upgrading to a New Device:

When you get your shiny new iPhone, run the backup shortcut on your old device one last time. All your shortcuts will be neatly packaged and ready to import. This means less time setting up your new device and more time enjoying it.

2. Experimenting with Complex Shortcuts:

Tinkering with new actions, or attempting to link multiple apps together in a single shortcut? With daily backups, if your experimental shortcut breaks something, you can revert to yesterday’s version effortlessly.

3. Sharing with a Team or Class:

If you’re collaborating on automation projects, a fresh daily backup ensures you can quickly provide a stable version to colleagues, students, or friends. They can easily review, import, and experiment with what you’ve created without fear of losing your original configurations.

4. Keeping a Version History:

Your daily backups serve as a running history of your evolving shortcuts library. Maybe a few weeks ago your routine shortcut ran more efficiently. You can restore an older backup and compare versions side-by-side to figure out what changed.

5. Peace of Mind for Mission-Critical Shortcuts:

If you’ve got shortcuts that do the heavy lifting in your personal or professional life—like pulling together project summaries or generating invoices—daily backups mean these high-value tools are always secure. You won’t lose hours of workflow engineering because your device decided to throw a tantrum.

Additional Tips for Perfecting Your Backup Routine

Use Descriptive Filenames:

Don’t just save ShortcutsBackup.zip. Try something like “Alice’s iPhone Shortcuts Backup - 2024-12-07.zip.” This helps you pinpoint which backup is which—handy when you have a month’s worth of daily archives.

Store Copies in Multiple Locations:

While iCloud is reliable, consider copying the .zip to another cloud service (like Dropbox) or an external hard drive from time to time. Think of it as a backup of your backup—double the protection, double the peace of mind.

Keep Your Shortcut Library Organised:

Regular backups are a great reminder to clean out shortcuts you no longer need. A leaner shortcuts library makes the backup process quicker and the .zip file smaller.

Daily Backups: The Set-It-and-Forget-It Approach

The beauty of daily timed automation is that it removes the need to remember to back up. One initial effort of a few minutes, and your device quietly does the housekeeping behind the scenes. If something ever goes wrong, you’re never more than a day behind on your shortcut backup—dramatically cutting down on time spent rebuilding complex workflows.

Final Thoughts

Shortcuts have quietly become a crucial part of many people’s digital productivity. From handling mundane, repetitive tasks to orchestrating complex operations involving multiple apps, they’re mini power-ups for your device. Ensuring you have a reliable, recent backup is a small step that can prevent a big headache later.

By following the steps in this guide, you’re not just preserving your shortcuts—you’re preserving your time, your productivity, and the creative effort you’ve poured into making your device truly work for you. Set it up, let it run, and sleep easy knowing that your shortcuts are always ready to spring back into action should the unexpected happen.

So why wait? Create your backup shortcut, schedule it to run daily, and enjoy the comfort of having a dependable safety net. Your future self will thank you.