22 actions for Shortcuts and Siri.
Send, create, find, and open — with Reminders-style filtering, sorting, and chaining. Far beyond what WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, and Messenger natively expose to iOS.
Tap or hover a category to browse its actions.
Deliver content to any conversation.
Send a text message to one or more conversations.
Send photos, videos, audio, or PDFs with an optional caption.
Create a regular or quiz-style poll in a group chat.
Share a Maps location with a conversation.
Share a contact card.
Create and send a calendar event with date, time, and place.
Import an .ics calendar file and send it to a conversation.
Always give the action a real conversation
Actions that act on a chat — Send Message, Send Media, Open Conversation, and the rest — need a specific conversation to target. If you leave that field set to Choose or Ask Each Time, the action has nothing to act on at run time and the shortcut fails. Pick the conversation up front, or feed one in from Find Conversations or Get Conversations in List.
Left as Choose or Ask Each Time, the action has no conversation to act on — it fails the moment the shortcut runs.
Feed the conversation from Find Conversations (or Get Conversations in List) — the token is resolved before Send runs, so it works every time.
Known issue — an unresolved conversation fails at run time
- Leaving the conversation as Choose or Ask Each Time makes the action fail the moment the shortcut runs — there is no entity for it to send to.
- Fix it by selecting a specific conversation in the action before you save the shortcut.
- Or chain it: place Find Conversations (with a filter) or Get Conversations in List above the action, then pass that result into the conversation field.
- This applies to every action that takes a conversation, not just Send Message.
Find or list — which source?
Both feed resolved conversations into the next action. Pick by how the set is defined:
Use Find Conversations when…
the set is defined by criteria that change run to run — “all unread since yesterday”, “every pinned group”. The filter re-evaluates each time the shortcut runs.
Use Get Conversations in List when…
the set is a fixed, hand-picked group you curate in the Chats tab — “Work”, “Family”. It stays the same until you edit the list.
Filter precisely with Find
Find actions use Apple's EntityPropertyQuery — the same engine behind the Reminders and Calendar “Find” actions. Stack property filters with the right comparators, sort, and limit the results.
Target a whole list at once
To message or open a fixed group of chats, the cleanest source is Get Conversations in List — it hands every chat on a custom list straight to the next action. You build those lists in the Chats tab; here is the whole flow, from creating the list to targeting it from a shortcut.
Any list you create becomes a filter at the top of your Chats tab.
Build a custom list
- In the Chats tab, tap the + at the end of the filter row to start a New list.
- Name it — or tap a Work, Family, or Friends suggestion — then tap Add people or groups to choose chats.
- On a group, tap the person icon to add members' private chats — every member's 1:1 conversation joins the list in one tap.
- Lists are private to you and stay on your device.
Manage & use it
- Each list shows as a filter pill at the top of Chats — tap to filter the conversation list to it.
- Press and hold a list pill for Edit List, Duplicate, Delete List, and Sort.
- In Shortcuts, drop in Get Conversations in List, pick the list, and pass its output into Send, Open, or Schedule.
- Because the conversations are resolved from the list, the action never hits a “Choose” prompt at run time.
Launch it from anywhere
Every action registers with Siri and Spotlight automatically — and your finished shortcut runs from any of these.
“Hey Siri, reply to unread” — or search the action in Spotlight.
Add the shortcut as an icon and run it with one tap.
Pin it to a Home Screen or Lock Screen widget.
Drop it into a Control Center control for instant access.
Fire it on a schedule, an arrival, an alarm — any iOS automation.
Chain with native actions & Apple Intelligence
The real power is chaining: pull messages or calendar events, let Apple Intelligence summarise or draft on-device, then send the result. Two of the ship-in templates, step by step:
Catch up on everything you missed in one run.
Turn your calendar into a message, automatically.
The “Show When Run” toggle
On every Send action. Leave it on to preview and confirm the message when the shortcut runs; switch it off for a silent, fully automated send.
Variables are a messaging feature
Personalisation tokens like {recipientFirstName} resolve in Quick Replies and scheduled messages — not in Shortcuts. In a shortcut, build the text with Shortcuts' own variables instead.
Ready-made shortcut templates
Eight templates ship in the app's gallery — add and run any of them in one tap, then customise from there.
Finds your unread conversations from the past 24 hours, summarises each thread in point form, and drafts three smart replies with different intents — powered by Apple Intelligence.
Picks a random photo from a chosen album, writes a warm, personal caption with AI, then sends it to a conversation.
Enter a sender's name to pull their recent messages, then have AI rewrite the content so it can be naturally relayed to another conversation.
Pick a day and the shortcut gathers all your calendar events, uses Apple Intelligence to craft a clear itinerary, and sends it to any conversation.
Pick a source group chat, choose which members to copy, then add them to a target group — recreate a roster with no manual re-adding.
Ask a natural-language question and Apple Intelligence answers it from your message history — it pulls key search terms, finds the most relevant messages, then writes a grounded answer based on what your chats actually say.
Create a custom Skill that matches your communication style — define tone, formality, and personality for consistent messaging.
Save frequently used messages as templates for instant access, organised by category for easy retrieval.
Shortcuts & Siri — common questions
Yes — AI Reply Assistant exposes 22 Shortcuts actions across four categories: Send (messages, media, polls, locations, contacts, events), Create (groups, quick replies, scheduled messages, Skills), Find (conversations, messages, contacts, and more with Reminders-style filtering), and Open (jump to any conversation, contact, or message). Every action can also be run from Siri as part of a saved shortcut. See the Apple Shortcuts and Siri section below for details.
Twenty-two, organised into four categories:
- Send (7) — messages, media, polls, locations, contacts, and events
- Create (5) — groups, quick replies, scheduled messages, and Skills
- Find (7) — search and filter conversations, messages, contacts, quick replies, scheduled messages, and Skills, with Reminders-style Add Filter, Sort by, and Limit controls
- Open (3) — jump directly to any conversation, contact, or message
Find actions use Apple's EntityPropertyQuery API — the same system that powers the Reminders and Calendar "Find" actions in Shortcuts. You get an Add Filter button with property-specific comparators (contains, equals, greater than, less than, between), a Sort by picker, and a Limit toggle. For example, Find Conversations lets you filter by platform, conversation type, unread status, pinned, archived, favourite, last message date, and participant count — then sort by date, title, or unread count.
Eleven filterable properties — combine as many as you like, then sort by last message date, title, unread count, or participant count:
- Title — contains, equals
- Platform — WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, or Messenger
- Conversation type — private, group, channel, etc.
- Group chat — yes / no
- Has unread — yes / no
- Is pinned, archived, or favourite
- Unread count — equals, greater than, less than
- Last message date — before, after
- Participant count — equals, greater than, less than
Yes — that is where AI Reply Assistant really shines. The output of a Find action can feed directly into a Send or Open action. For example: Find Conversations where "is pinned" is true, then Send Message to each result. Or: Find Text Messages where "is from me" is false and "timestamp is after" yesterday, then count them for a daily digest.
Yes. Use the Automations tab in the Shortcuts app to trigger any AI Reply Assistant action based on time of day, location, Focus mode, NFC tag, or app events. For example: send a check-in message every weekday at 9 am, or fire a quick reply when you arrive at the office.
The app ships eight ready-made shortcut templates you can add in one tap:
- Reply Unread Conversations — finds unread chats from the past 24 hours, summarises each thread, and drafts three smart replies
- Send Photo Memory — picks a random photo from an album, writes an AI caption, and sends it
- Relay Information — pulls a sender’s recent messages and rewrites them to relay to another conversation
- Send Day Itinerary — turns a day’s calendar events into a clear itinerary and sends it
- Clone Group Members — copies members from one group chat into another
- Semantic Message Search — answers a natural-language question from your message history
- Generate Skills — sets up a new custom AI writing style
- Generate Quick Reply — saves reusable message templates
You can also chain the app’s 22 App Intent actions with native Shortcuts to build your own.
AI Reply Assistant is by far the most comprehensive Shortcuts integration of any messaging app on iOS:
| App | Native Shortcuts actions |
|---|---|
| One — Send Message, but it only targets saved contacts (no group chats) and stops at the compose sheet | |
| Telegram | Two — Send Message, Open Chat |
| None | |
| Messenger | None |
| AI Reply Assistant | 22 — including 7 Find queries with filter, sort, and limit controls, working across all four platforms |
Your personal AI assistant for messaging.
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