Prevent 'Running Your Automation' Notifications for Shortcuts on Your iPhone in iOS 15.4

For most Shortcuts automations you create on your iPhone, you'll get a "Running your automation" notification every time the task is automatically triggered. If you find those alerts annoyingly unnecessary, there's a less-than-ideal workaround to blocking them, but Apple gives us a better option in its iOS 15.4 update.

Notifications have always been a major annoyance in the Shortcuts app. They are unneeded for many shortcuts and ruin custom app icons on the home screen by displaying a banner up top to let you know the shortcut worked. You can disable those alerts using the Screen Time trick, but it doesn't work for all notifications and disables alerts you actually want to appear for specific tasks.

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When it comes to automation, the Screen Time trick will get rid of the "Running your automation" banners, but it will also get rid of other important notifications needed for some automations to finish processing. For example, some of your automations may require manual interaction on a "Tap to respond" notification, and the Screen Time workaround will hide that, stopping the automation from finishing.

With the iOS 15.4 update for iPhone (and iPadOS 15.4 software for iPad), released March 14, 2022, there's an official way to prevent those "Running your automation" alerts from appearing without messing up any important Shortcuts notifications.

Option 1: When Fixing an Automation You Already Made

If you already have automations you've created pre-iOS 15.4, removing the "Running your automation" alert from the process is easy. In the Shortcuts app:

1. Tap an automation from the "Automation" tab.
2. Toggle off "Ask Before Running" if it's not already disabled.
3. Tap "Don't Ask" on the confirmation prompt if you just disabled "Ask Before Running."
4. Toggle off the new "Notify When Run" option if it's not already. (The switch only appears when "Ask Before Running" is disabled.)
5. Tap "Done" to save.

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Option 2: When Creating a New Automation

If you want to build a new automation and want to prevent the "Running your automation" notification from appearing, open the Shortcuts app and:

1. Start a new "Personal Automation" from the "Automations" tab.
2. Choose your trigger, configure it, and hit "Next."
3. Add all the actions you want to run when triggered, and hit "Next."
4. Toggle off "Ask Before Running" if you see it.
5. Tap "Don't Ask" on the confirmation prompt.
6. Toggle off the new "Notify When Run" option if it's not already off. (The switch only appears when "Ask Before Running" is disabled.)
7. Tap "Done" to save.

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Before and After Turning Off 'Notify When Run'

Check out the GIFs below to see the before and after in action. These examples use an automation where "Tap to respond" is necessary to continue the operation. For automations that don't require that step, you won't see it, which means even smoother automation.

• "Ask Before Running" enabled (left): You need to tap on the Shortcuts notification, then "Run."
• "Ask Before Running" disabled; "Notify When Run" enabled (middle): "Running your automation" appears, then you need to touch "Tap to respond."
• "Ask Before Running" and "Notify When Run" disabled (right): You just need to touch "Tap to respond."

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Things Could Still Be Better for Shortcuts Automation

First, as you can see above, "Tap to respond" still appears for some automations. "Notify When Run" does not prevent that needed interaction, so you'll still have to tap that if you see it. You can use the Screen Time trick to hide those alerts, but doing so will also prevent the associated automations from completing, rendering them useless.

If you're not a fan of the "Tap to respond" alerts, you're out of luck. Ideally, Apple would add another toggle switch for each automation labeled "Run Automatically" to omit "Tap to respond" from the process.

Second, you will still see those annoying banner notifications that show a checkmark on the custom Home Screen icons you've set up for your apps. Those are not automations, just regular shortcuts that are manually triggered when you tap your custom Home Screen icons.

To avoid the checkmark alert, you can create an automation to open the app or apps you have custom icons for and give it an action that won't affect anything on your device, like turning "Zoom" off. Of course, you'll want to follow the instructions above to avoid the notifications that appear for automations.

Cover photo, screenshots, and GIFs by Justin Meyers/Gadget Hacks