Safari Plus shortcut, or how to get more out of Safari on iPhone

While Safari gains new features and improvements with each new version of iOS, this native iPhone web browser still lacks a few features that would make browsing the web even more enjoyable. Fortunately, there are shortcuts that allow you to squeeze a little more out of safari.

The Safari Plus shortcut available from the RoutineHub repository adds some useful features to the Safari browser. Thanks to it, you can quickly and easily save any website as a PDF file, download any image from the page or change the full URL to a shortened one and share it on social media or save it in your notes.

What you need to know before installing a shortcut

Make sure you're running iOS 14 or later. On older versions of iOS, the Safari Plus shortcut will not work. You must also have the ability to add untrusted shortcuts to the Shortcuts app turned on and Shortcuts access to iCloud turned on.

Before you move on to the next part of this text, make sure you understand what abbreviations are and what consequences they may have. Everything about untrusted shortcuts can be found in the entry How to enable the download of untrusted shortcuts on the iPhone. The author of the text and the editors of AppleMobile.pl are not responsible for the consequences and potential damage to the iPhone user by using untrusted shortcuts. The user does so solely at his own risk.

Add the Safari Plus shortcut to your iPhone

You can find the Safari Plus shortcut in the RoutineHub repository. Scan the code below with your iPhone to download it.

When the Camera app recognizes the code, a notification banner will appear at the top of the screen. Swipe down on the notification. In the Website QR Code window, click the Download Shortcut button. The Add Shortcut tab will be displayed. Scroll to the bottom and click the Add Untrusted Shortcut button. The added shortcut will appear in the My Shortcuts tab of the Shortcuts app.

How to use the Safari Plus shortcut

Launch the Safari application, then open any website. Now tap the share button in the middle of the navigation bar at the bottom of the page. In the share sheet that appears, tap Safari Plus to launch the shortcut.

When you launch the Safari Plus shortcut for the first time, you will be asked to allow the shortcut to access several things, such as websites and apps. To use all the functions offered by the shortcut, tap OK, visible under each permission request.

Under granting accesses, a menu will be displayed with various options that allow you to create a PDF file, shorten the URL link, and download images in bulk, among others.

Read article

The Read article option allows you to read aloud any article you view in Safari. In addition to English, this feature can speak articles written in French, Spanish, and Arabic. After selecting this option, wait a while for the shortcut to parse the article and read it aloud.

Note: This feature may not work properly on some iPhone models. On iPhone 11 series models, this feature does not work for long texts. On the models of the iPhone 12 series, the voice stutters at times. According to the creator of the Shortcut, the problems lie in iOS itself, and a fix for these devices should come when Apple fixes bugs in the Shortcuts app or iOS.

Make PDF

The Make PDF option can save any web page you view in Safari as a PDF file. It doesn't matter how big your website is, but keep in mind that the longer your website is, the longer it will take to convert it to a PDF file. This shouldn't take more than thirty seconds for longer web pages. Once the web page is finished converting to PDF, a share sheet will appear with options to save or share the PDF. You can choose "Save to Files" to name and save the PDF to iCloud Drive or phone memory. You can also share the PDF file on social media or send it using one of the messengers installed on your iPhone.

Short URL

If you want to send a website URL via SMS or share it on Twitter and it's too long, the "Short URL" feature can shorten it to a shorter URL supported by TinyURL. Once the TinyURL is generated, it will be automatically copied to the clipboard so you can paste it anywhere. A pop-up will appear showing the shortened URL and giving you the option to save it to Notes. Any link you shorten and save to Notes using this method will appear in the same note showing both the original and shortened URL.

Download images

By default, Safari allows you to save photos from a website one at a time. The Download images option of the Safari Plus shortcut allows you to quickly view all the images and then save them to your device. After a few seconds of running the shortcut, a pop-up window will appear showing all the image files available on the displayed page, including background images. Just select the image you want to download, tap the share button, then select Save image from the menu. The selected photos will be saved in the Recent folder in the Photos app.

Search a product

The last feature of Safari Plus is the ability to search for any product on many websites including Amazon, eBay, Google and AliExpress. When you tap Search a product, the shortcut will ask if the product you want to search for has been copied to your clipboard. If so, tap Yes, if not, tap No, then enter your product name. After tapping Done, you can select the website where you want to search for the product. If you select a website for which you have an application, you may be redirected with the results directly to the application. If not, the search will be done in Safari.

Safari Plus shortcut, or how to get more out of Safari on iPhone