10 iPhone Shortcuts for Text That Save Hours Every Week

The Shortcuts app on iPhone is powerful. It can automate almost anything — including text tasks you do dozens of times a day. But most people never get past the “Get Started” screen because building shortcuts feels like programming.

Here are 10 text-related shortcuts that actually save time, how to set them up, and what to do if you’d rather skip the setup entirely.

What Are Shortcuts, Exactly?

Shortcuts is Apple’s built-in automation app. You chain together “actions” — small steps like “Get Clipboard,” “Translate Text,” or “Replace Text” — into a workflow that runs with one tap. You can trigger shortcuts from the home screen, share sheet, Siri, or even automatically based on time or location.

For text tasks, shortcuts can translate, reformat, summarize, and transform whatever you’ve typed or copied. The catch is that building them takes time, and debugging them when they break takes more time.

1. Translate Clipboard to English

What it does: Takes whatever’s on your clipboard, translates it to English, and copies the result back.

How to build it:

1. Open Shortcuts > tap + > name it “Translate Clipboard”
2. Add “Get Clipboard” action
3. Add “Translate Text” > set to English
4. Add “Copy to Clipboard”
5. Optionally add “Show Result” to preview

When it’s useful: Reading foreign-language content, translating messages from international colleagues, shopping on non-English websites.

The friction: You have to copy the text first, switch to Shortcuts (or use the share sheet), run it, then go back and paste. That’s 4-5 app switches for one translation.

2. Clean Up Pasted Text (Remove Formatting)

What it does: Strips all formatting from clipboard text so you paste plain text everywhere.

How to build it:

1. Add “Get Clipboard”
2. Add “Get Text from Input” (this strips formatting)
3. Add “Copy to Clipboard”

When it’s useful: Pasting from web pages into emails, pasting from PDFs into notes, any time rich text formatting comes along for the ride and messes up your document.

The friction: You have to remember to run it every time before pasting. Most people forget.

3. Make Text Uppercase / Lowercase / Title Case

What it does: Changes the case of selected or clipboard text.

How to build it:

1. Add “Get Clipboard” (or “Ask for Input” with text)
2. Add “Change Case” > select Uppercase, Lowercase, or Title Case
3. Add “Copy to Clipboard”

Pro tip: Make three separate shortcuts — one for each case — and add them to your home screen as a folder.

When it’s useful: Formatting headings, fixing accidentally caps-locked text, standardizing names in a list.

4. Count Words and Characters

What it does: Shows the word count and character count of text you’ve copied.

How to build it:

1. Add “Get Clipboard”
2. Add “Count” > set to “Words”
3. Add “Show Result” with a template like “Words: [Count]”
4. Duplicate for character count if needed

When it’s useful: Checking tweet length, verifying you’re under an essay word limit, checking bio character counts.

5. Summarize Long Text

What it does: Takes a long block of text and creates a shorter summary.

How to build it (iOS 18.1+):

1. Add “Get Clipboard”
2. Add “Summarize” action (Apple Intelligence required)
3. Add “Copy to Clipboard” or “Show Result”

The catch: Requires iPhone 15 Pro or newer for Apple Intelligence. On older phones, you’d need to call an external API (OpenAI, etc.) through Shortcuts, which requires an API key and costs money per request.

6. Replace Text Patterns

What it does: Find and replace within your clipboard text using exact match or regex.

How to build it:

1. Add “Get Clipboard”
2. Add “Replace Text” > enter find/replace terms
3. Add “Copy to Clipboard”

When it’s useful: Removing tracking parameters from URLs, standardizing date formats, cleaning up copy-pasted data.

The friction: You need a separate shortcut for each replacement pattern. Managing 10+ replacement shortcuts gets messy.

7. Add Text to a Running Note

What it does: Appends whatever you’ve copied to a specific note, creating a running log.

How to build it:

1. Add “Get Clipboard”
2. Add “Append to Note” > select your target note
3. Optionally prepend with “Get Current Date” for timestamps

When it’s useful: Research collection, saving quotes, building a list throughout the day.

8. Share as Plain Text via Messages or Email

What it does: Takes clipboard text and opens a share sheet pre-filled with the plain text.

How to build it:

1. Add “Get Clipboard”
2. Add “Get Text from Input” (strips formatting)
3. Add “Send Message” or “Send Email”

9. Convert Text to Speech (Read Aloud)

What it does: Reads your clipboard text out loud.

How to build it:

1. Add “Get Clipboard”
2. Add “Speak Text” > configure voice and speed

When it’s useful: Proofreading by listening, accessibility, multitasking.

10. Create a Formatted Email Template

What it does: Fills in an email template with variable data from your clipboard or prompts.

How to build it:

1. Add “Ask for Input” prompts for recipient, subject, key details
2. Add “Text” action with your email template using variables
3. Add “Send Email” with the assembled content

The Problem With All of These

Every shortcut above works. I’ve used most of them. But there’s a pattern: each one requires you to leave what you’re doing, run the shortcut, come back, and paste the result. The context switching adds up.

Building shortcuts also takes 10-30 minutes each. Debugging them when iOS updates break something takes longer. And some of the most useful text actions — like summarization and intelligent rewriting — require Apple Intelligence hardware or external API setup.

After maintaining a folder of 15+ text shortcuts for a year, I started looking for something simpler.

The Simpler Alternative: Text Actions in Your Keyboard

LudyType puts text actions directly in your keyboard. Instead of switching to the Shortcuts app, you tap the action button right where you’re typing.

Here’s how LudyType handles the same tasks:

Shortcut	LudyType Equivalent
Translate clipboard	Tap Translate > select language > done
Clean formatting	Paste as plain text from clipboard panel
Change case	Tap action > Uppercase / Lowercase
Summarize text	Tap action > Summarize
Fix grammar	Tap action > Fix Grammar
Rewrite text	Tap action > Rewrite (Professional/Casual/Friendly)

The difference isn’t capability — it’s where it happens. Shortcuts requires app switching. LudyType runs inside whatever app you’re already in. For text tasks you do multiple times a day, that difference is significant.

You can also create custom actions with your own prompts. If you had a shortcut that reformats meeting notes into bullet points, you can create a LudyType action that does the same thing, accessible from any text field.

When Shortcuts Still Win

Shortcuts are better for automations that run in the background or involve non-text tasks. Automatically saving screenshots to a specific album, toggling settings based on location, running multi-app workflows — these are Shortcuts territory.

For anything that involves transforming text you’re actively working with — translating, reformatting, summarizing, rewriting — doing it from the keyboard is faster than doing it from an automation app.

Getting Started

If you want to try the Shortcuts route, start with #1 (Translate Clipboard) and #2 (Clean Formatting). These two cover the most common text annoyances and are simple to build.

If you’d rather skip the setup, LudyType’s free tier gives you 70 actions to test with — enough to see if the keyboard approach works better for your workflow.

For more ways to boost your iPhone typing, check out our guide on fixing grammar on iPhone and the best AI keyboards for 2026.