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Music Shortcuts help?

Armen

Armen

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 30, 2013
7,408
2,274
Los Angeles
I created a basic music shortcut "Play Music <playlist>". I chose 4 playlists and added these shortcuts to the home screen so I don't have to go into the music app every time just to listen (Thanks Apple for a worthless music widget that never can figure out what I listen to often).

I tap on the shortcut, it executes but does not play any music. If I go into the music app the playlist did load, the play/pause indicator displays "playing" but yet no sound. If I manually pause/play it works fine. the heck? Sometimes toggling back/forth between 2 shortcuts makes one of them eventually start.
 
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Ok, I have a sort-of workaround. To my surprise, Federico Viticci's giant multi-function shortcut MusicBot still works, including the function that lets you save three playlists to launch from within the shortcut. It's one more tap than a purpose-built playlist but better than navigating through the Music app.

I looked through MusicBot to see if I could borrow Viticci's method to make my shortcuts work, but couldn't figure it out. Maybe someone with more Shortcuts chops can take a look and come up with a simple shortcut to launch a playlist that still works.


Two things to be aware of about MusicBot:

- You need to turn on Settings/Shortcuts/Allow Untrusted Shortcuts
- When you first download it, you have to scroll way way way down to the bottom to find the button to add it to your Shortcuts gallery.
 
Disregard the above! I have a better workaround. I tried the following, adapting Viticci/MacStories' Playlists shortcut, and it works. No idea why.

  • Add the Get Playlist action and change the "Playlist" variable to your playlist
  • Add the Play Music action and leave the "Playlist" variable as is. Tap "Show More" and turn on Shuffle if desired.
  • Done!
Or download my version, replace my playlist with yours in the first action, and change the name.

IMG_CD5E6CB7559A-1.jpeg



(You'll need to Allow Untrusted Shortcuts as mentioned above.)
 
Last edited:
Abazigal said:
@Armen Do you mind sharing your playlist? Mine seems to work just fine, though I mainly use it from my Apple Watch.


Here’s mine.
Click to expand...
The shortcut I created it so simple it's not even worth sharing. It is literally

Play Music <playlistname>

When I run the shortcut the playlist loads but it does not immediately play. That's my issue with it. However, I created 3 of these shortcuts with different playlist names. If I toggle between them sometimes it will start playing.
 
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