Receive what’s onscreen

The share sheet allows you to use content from an app as input. The Receive What’s Onscreen option allows you to send content to a shortcut when using other ways of running a shortcut — such as Siri or back tap. When run, the shortcut can receive what’s onscreen from supported apps, such as Safari, Maps or Photos. The items onscreen are passed into the first action of your shortcut.

In My Shortcuts in the Shortcuts app on your iOS or iPadOS device, tap a shortcut.
The shortcut opens in the shortcut editor.
Tap to open Details, then turn on Receive What’s Onscreen.
Tap Done.
A new action appears at the beginning of your workflow defining inputs the shortcut will accept. “Any” tells you that the shortcut will accept all types of content input when you run the shortcut in another app.

You can limit the input to the shortcut to allow only specific types of input — for example, if you have a shortcut to process URLs and your screen has URLs and images onscreen.

For more information about input types, see Understanding input types in Shortcuts on iPhone or iPad.

Helpful?

Shortcuts User Guide

Receive what’s onscreen