The WWDC 2026 Keynote mentioned several changes to the Shortcuts app, and I’ve listed them below. All but one of these are from a terse listing of new features at 6:20 of the keynote video.
- Natural language shortcut creation
- Redesigned Shortcuts Editor
- Store data in shortcuts
- Else if support
- Screenshot and notification automations
- Expanded Get What’s On Screen capabilities
- Group conversation support
- Faster shortcuts and actions indexing in Spotlight
Two items are of special interest to me, and the first is if…else if support. Hopefully, the convoluted If…Otherwise statements will no longer be needed.
The second is the ability to store data in a shortcut across multiple runs of the shortcut. According to Google AI, this ability is implemented by way of specialized Storage actions that allow you to save text, numbers, dates, and lists. In the past, I’ve used text and occasionally plist files for this purpose, and hopefully that will no longer be necessary.
I normally don’t install early beta versions of macOS, but I would certainly like to try out these new features.