IFTTT Archives | ariel lim consulting

How to Use Free Apps to Automate Your Boring Activities (No Coding Required)

January 23, 2020January 7, 2020 by Ariel Lim

Automation is like the gears working in the background

One of the sad truths of life is that we all have a limited amount of energy per day. Humans aren’t designed to be operating at 100% capacity for 24 hours. And because of that, we have learn to prioritize what must be done today and what can wait until tomorrow.

We all face constant distractions every day. The biggest culprit we don’t notice is multitasking.

Studies have shown that multitasking can reduce productivity by as much as 40%. So, instead of trying to multitask, which only 2% of the population are actually capable of doing, stick to one task and finish it first.

But what about the other stuff?

The answer is to automate it.

Table of Contents
Click on any of these to jump straight to that topic

Shortcuts app

Automations Tab
My Shortcuts Tab

IFTTT

Example Applet: Automatically Tweet New Articles

Zapier

Example Zap: Automatically Post New Videos to YouTube

3 Automation Apps You Should Use in Your Daily Life

The three apps I’m going to mention are very popular and. You’ll find a lot of articles written about them already describing their history and their capabilities. I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’ll share with you the actual automations I use them for to save me a couple of seconds here and there.

That means I have more time to spend on what needs my attention the most. I don’t lose productive time during switching.

1. Shortcuts (for iOS)

Shortcuts is one of the tools I use every day. Or, put it in another way, it runs by itself without me doing anything. Once I set it up, it does the job for me.

Of course, things would be different for your particular needs. But for me, the most used automations in Shortcuts are the following:

Reduce screen brightness when low power mode is on (automation)
Increase screen brightness when low power mode is off (automation)
At 4 AM, set my phone’s volume to 100% (automation)
Deep Work (shortcut)

The first 3 are self-explanatory; while the last one is more personal for me. Let me explain.

First, download the app if you haven’t already. Then, once you open the app, you’ll notice three separate tabs at the bottom:

My Shortcuts
Automation
Gallery

Automations

This is the second/middle tab in the Shortcuts app. Automations make your device react to changes in conditions.

For example, whenever I turn the low power mode on, my goal is to save up on battery. Naturally, to help with that, I’ll also lower my screen brightness. Instead of doing two tasks that take up an additional 2-3 seconds, I just do one and it automatically does it for me.

Have you ever set an alarm only to wake up not hearing the alarm? That has definitely happened to me a lot of time. The culprit? It’s not because I hit snooze and can’t remember it. It’s because the alarm is tied to your phone’s volume. So, if during the night, you were watching Netflix or listening to some music, naturally, your volume would be set to around 20%. But then you fall asleep. Then your alarm goes off at 20% volume. If you are very tired the night before, you will most likely sleep through this. But if the volume was set to 100%, there’s a higher chance you’ll hear the alarm and wake up.

My Shortcuts

I have multiple shortcuts here, but I’ll only share one of them and what I call Deep Work. At its core, what this shortcut does is whenever I want to do some deep work, I click on it and the magic begins:

A timer of 90 minutes starts
Do Not Disturb is turned on for that 90 minutes
Low Power Mode is turned on
My phone’s brightness goes dim
My music player (Spotify) opens
- I then manually select my Deep Focus playlist
- If you’re using Apple Music, you can do the same. That means you don’t have to manually select a playlist and just have it automatically played for you.

There are tons of ways you can use Shortcuts to automate things that you do frequently. For example, you can have it automatically send an SMS to your spouse when you get arrive at work, or automatically play a playlist when you connect to your home Wi-Fi network.

Take a couple of minutes to think about what you do daily that you can pass on the work to your phone.

For more inspiration, feel free to check the Gallery to find out how others are using the Shortcuts app. One of the automations I plan to create once I upgrade my phone is the use of NFC tags.

2. IFTTT

IFTTT is one of the oldest automation tools on this list. It stands for “if this, then that.” And it’s pretty self-explanatory. Most automations are actually configured like that. It contains two parts: a trigger and an action.

The Shortcuts app is limited to the iOS ecosystem, or more specifically, my device (iPhone or iPad).

I use IFTTT for various things. But one of the most used automations I have in IFTTT is to automate social sharing of new articles I published on my website.

IFTTT Example Applet Recipe: Automatically tweet new blog posts to Twitter

The interface has changed recently. Honestly, I don’t like it. It looks more complicated to me than before.

But to set this up, you can download the app on your phone or create an account online. Once you get inside, you will see the “applets” you have. These are your automation recipes.

If this is the first time your using IFTTT, head on over to the Explore section. You can find some inspiration there or start creating your own applet from scratch.

Depending on what you want to automate, you can simply “connect” an existing applet so you don’t have to configure anything else. Alternately, if you want to create one, you will go through something like this…

How the Magnet App for Mac Works

Watch this video on YouTube

In the video, I already connected my WordPress website and my Twitter account. But if you haven’t done so, you will be asked to do it on that screen itself. Just like with the Shortcuts app, you can do a lot of automations here.

For example, I setup various Applets that do something like this: if website ABC publishes a new article, add it to my Pocket account. That way, my Pocket always has something new I can read.

3. Zapier

Zapier is one of the most popular and powerful automation tool out there. It allows for multiple conditions and logic branches, unlike Shortcuts and IFTTT. It also boasts of having the ability to integrate more than 1,500 apps. But, it comes with a price. You can create a free account but would be limited by its use to 5 running zaps (this is what you call the automation itself).

Just like with IFTTT, you can do the same thing with Zapier. For example, if you publish a new blog post, have it automatically posted on Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social media tool. But since the free version can only run 5 zaps and I can do the same tasks inside IFTTT, I limit what I do inside Zapier to more complex tasks.

Zap Example: Automatically post hi-resolution video to YouTube

I started a project back in 2018 where I post quick 1-minute videos on marketing. I also documented the entire process of creating videos in 30 minutes or less.

One part of this process is to distribute the finished video on YouTube. Since I use Google Drive to store all my files, I created a Zap to upload new video to my YouTube channel with some pre-defined data. The video on YouTube is set to draft first. I then go in and edit the description, then schedule or publish it.

The main benefit of this setup is I eliminate the need to pre-fill the required data by YouTube and I don’t have to wait for it to upload as well. Once I move my final video to a specific folder in my Google Drive account, it does its magic.

Here’s how that looks like inside Zapier. First, make a new Zap. You’ll see a screen like this…

Next, populate it with the apps/services you want to do. The formula is similar to IFTTT: “when this happens…do this…” You will also get asked to connect the app if you haven’t done so in the past.

The final output of the Zap will look like this:

Zap to Automatically Upload Videos to YouTube from Google Drive

Let me break it down step-by-step…

1. When there is a new file in Google Drive inside a particular folder

I created a specific folder inside my Google Drive account so that it only triggers when there is a new file in that folder.

2. Add a filter so it only looks for videos

If you don’t add this, the zap will trigger every time a new file is added. For my purpose, I also add the cover photos (jpg) inside the same folder.

I don’t want to receive errors for my zap for them because I have to manually check them one-by-one to see if they are valid or not. That’s why I added this filter to only continue if the file extension is an mp4 or mov file.

3. Populate default fields in YouTube

The final step is to add the default/required fields in YouTube. In my case, I have a specific naming convention. So that works great on the title field. I also have a default text/copy that I use in the YouTube description.

Just go over the required fields and you’re on your way.

The last step in the automation process is to test out if the zap is working. Add a new video (with file extension of .mov or .mp4) then it will automatically get posted on YouTube as a draft.

I have to tell you, this saved me a ton of time back when I was working on this project. In a country with terrible internet connection, this zap was a life-saver. I don’t know if I continued with it if it took me 45 minutes to upload the video to YouTube.

Over to You

Technology is only useful if it helps you become more productive and do more things in less time. If it drags out your day, then that’s definitely something worth cutting out from your life.

I hope you find these examples useful. I’ll be sharing more examples of automations in the future. Do you have any repetitive or administrative task that you have automated, or would like to automate? Let me know in the comments below.

Buffer and IFTTT Integration: How to Post to Multiple Accounts (A Workaround on the Single Account Limitation in IFTTT)

March 20, 2021October 7, 2018 by Ariel Lim

[Important Update] As of April 17, 2019, Buffer already discontinued the feature I used in this post. That means the contents of this post won’t work anymore. I’ll update this again once I find a workaround.

Are you using IFTTT and Buffer to schedule your social media posts but can’t seem to post to selected accounts?

The basic recipe for IFTTT goes like this: If (insert activity here), then add to Buffer. For example, mine looks like this: if I favorited an article in Pocket, add to Buffer.

Problem 1: IFTTT Only Allows You to Post to a Single Account

As simple as it sounds, this setup is actually not that straightforward. If you tried this yourself, you’d realize that IFTTT only allows you to post to a single account in your Buffer profile.

You can customize this in the settings. On a browser, login to IFTTT. Click on your profile > Services > Click on Buffer > Settings (top-right) > Edit Connection. Mine is set to my Twitter profile.

But, that’s now what you want, right? You want to be able to post to multiple accounts at once, or all of them.

The Solution: Email to Buffer

So, after spending time researching, you probably found your answer: Email to Buffer. While not originally designed for IFTTT, you can actually use this method to post to one or all your accounts.

All you need to do is connect your Gmail account with IFTTT and create a recipe with the that portion using Gmail.

Problem 2: Email to Buffer Posts to All Your Accounts

The email to Buffer works just fine when you want to post to all your accounts by default.

It’s simple to setup. You only need to remember these two things:

Subject line —> contains the text/caption you want to post
Body —> contains the link and image you want to be included

If you think about it, this gives us another problem. What if you don’t want to post to all your accounts, but only to selected ones?

For example, you have a Facebook page, Twitter, and Instagram connected to a free Buffer account. When you use the email to Buffer method, you’ll get an error if the post you tried to send doesn’t have a photo.

In my case, after I favorite an article in Pocket, the IFTTT recipe will run and send an email to Buffer.

But since I’m sharing an article, there’s no image.

This will give an error and won’t schedule anything to Buffer.

Solution: Advanced Commands

In your email settings in IFTTT, you can actually choose certain profiles or accounts to send to. Here’s an example where I only chose to post on my Twitter and Facebook accounts:

This solves our problem already, right?

We get to choose which profile to send by using the @s command and adding the social media accounts.

Not quite.

Problem 3: Multiple Accounts in One Social Media

If you’re like me (I’m have Pro account, btw), I have multiple accounts under the same social network. For example, I have 2 Facebook Pages, 1 Twitter account, 2 Instagram profiles, my personal Google+ and LinkedIn accounts. (Feel free to follow me and say hi! 👋)

If you use the settings above, Buffer will post to the two Facebook pages I have in my Buffer account. And that’s something I don’t want to happen.

Both pages are for different clients.

So, this method won’t work.

Potential Solution: Use @p to Identify Specific Profiles Instead

There’s the profile method: @p profile_name. This might work, but it depends on your setup again. For example, here’s how it might look:

If you noticed, I have two “Ariel Lim” in the field. This represents my LinkedIn and Google+ accounts. As you can see, this already poses an issue.

I actually don’t know which of those two accounts my post show up. If I only use one Ariel Lim, will it post to my LinkedIn or Google+?

Here’s another scenario where this becomes an issue. My Twitter and Instagram profiles have the same name — @aylim14_.

So if I want to post a link, and since Instagram doesn’t support posts without images, this will give you an error.

Potential Solution: Combine @p and @s Depending on What You Need

In theory, yes.

But with all my experimentations, I can’t get this to work.

For example, I only want to post to my Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and one Facebook Page. I’d have to use something like this:

@s Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ @p Facebook_PageName

But this seem to always give me an error.

Again, depending on the specific names in your account, this might work for you. You have to test it yourself.

Or…

The Real Solution: Use Unique Profile IDs for Your Social Media Accounts

After a lot of experimentation and help from the Buffer support team, this method allows you to post to selected profiles without worrying about errors or which one of them will it be posted on.

Here’s how this might look.

My Setup

If you noticed, the color turned to green because this is for a different recipe and app — Feedly.

The recipe goes like this: if I add an article to a board in Feedly, email to buffer.

I have several recipes for this because apart from my own reading, I use this to stay updated on my client’s industries. And if I also handle their social media accounts, this is how I curate some posts.

I read in Feedly. Then, when I read something I like and want to share, if it’s for Client A, I save it to a personal board (Board A). If it’s for Client B, it goes to Board B.

Each of this workflow has its own IFTTT recipe. The email to Buffer, therefore, has to be customized so that when it’s for Client A, I only post on Client A’s social media accounts, and not Client B’s.

Here’s how you do it.

Step 1: Locate your unique profile IDs

You can find your unique profile ID inside Buffer by logging in then clicking on each social account, check the URL and get the alphanumeric text there.

Go through each of your accounts using this process and save it to a place where you can easily reference it. This is what you’ll use in step 2 below.

Step 2: Use it with the @p method

Once you have each of those unique IDs, it’s time to create your recipes.

Again, this depends on your specific workflow. In my case, I have 2 separate recipes for my 2 clients. That way, when I add an article to Board A, it gets scheduled to Client A’s social media accounts and my personal Twitter account.

I also have another IFTTT recipe for Client B, where I share to their Facebook Page only.

As you can see, this method solves all your worries when it comes so posting to Buffer from an IFTTT recipe. You can customize this further depending on how you see fit.

For example, I created another recipe where after I publish a post on this website, it gets added to only my Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. It doesn’t get posted on my client’s accounts.

Your imagination is your limitation.

Did this solve your Buffer-IFTTT problem? Let me know in the comments below!