These single-step Apple Shortcuts are favorites I use almost daily

Apple’s Shortcuts app lets you set up complex shortcuts, including with the 25+ new actions available in iOS 26. But my two favorite and most used shortcuts in Apple’s app involve just a single step each.

#1: One-tap noise cancellation for AirPods Pro

My all-time most used shortcut is designed to activate noise cancellation on AirPods Pro.

I use AirPods Pro 3, but the shortcut works with any AirPods model that supports Active Noise Cancellation (ANC).

My ‘Noise Cancellation’ shortcut does one thing, quickly and efficiently: it toggles AirPods’ noise cancellation on.

Whenever I want to activate ANC, I swipe to open Control Center, then tap the ‘Noise Cancellation’ button I’ve set up there via the ‘Run Shortcut’ control.

Squeezing the AirPods’ tip to activate ANC is an easy enough alternative, but I’ve found that too often I’ll accidentally do it when ANC was already active. Thus, I enter Transparency mode and have to squeeze again for ANC.

And the noise control modes hidden behind Control Center’s volume slider take more steps to access than I’d prefer.

With my custom shortcut, I don’t have to think about what mode I’m in, or jump through several steps. I just tap the Control Center button, and if ANC wasn’t on yet, it will turn on. If it was already active, nothing happens.

It may seem like a small thing, but when you regularly go in and out of Transparency and Noise Cancellation modes, it’s very nice having a one-tap option to engage ANC.

You can install the shortcut here. You’ll need to replace my AirPods with your own in the shortcut’s action.

#2: Open app settings with no hassle

When Apple redesigned the iPhone’s Settings app in iOS 18, it buried app settings behind multiple taps and lots of scrolling.

Fortunately, last year Quinn Nelson shared a single-step shortcut that solves the problem.

With Nelson’s shortcut, whenever you’re using an app and need to access its settings, you can do so with ease via Control Center.

Setup is extremely simple:

1. Install this single-step ‘App Settings’ shortcut
2. Add a Control Center ‘Run Shortcut’ control
3. Assign that control to your new ‘App Settings’ shortcut

The basic premise of the shortcut is that 99% of the time, when you want to access an app’s settings, you’re already using that app.

So rather than leaving the app, opening Settings, scrolling down to find ‘Apps,’ then scrolling again to find the app and tapping it—you can just invoke Control Center and tap the ‘App Settings’ shortcut. That’s it.

It might take a bit to break old habits of manually launching the Settings app, but once you do, this shortcut will save you several steps every time.

You can install the shortcut here.

What are some of your favorite go-to shortcuts in Apple’s app? Let us know in the comments.

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