Although I absolutely adore my iPhone, I have to admit that at times, typing long-winded messages can be quite the tedious task. I always wished for a quicker, easier way to enter in the same phrases or addresses into e-mails or text messages. Luckily, I recently discovered a super-handy tool featured on iOS: shortcuts!

From installing apps to creating new account registrations, I found myself spending far too much time entering in the same data, over and over again. With the help of iOS shortcuts, time-consuming typing is now a thing of the past.  This valuable text expansion tool uses abbreviations to represent expanded blurbs of text. Using this feature is extremely simple: just type in the corresponding abbreviation, and the iPhone will automatically fill-in the expanded form of text for you!

Here are a few suggestions for making the most out of iOS shortcuts:

• Entering email addresses: Save time and extra effort by creating a shortcut for your most commonly used addresses.  I would suggest something short and simple, like “em” to represent the email address. If you happen to use numerous accounts on a regular basis, you can set up additional shortcuts to correspond with each individual address (i.e.-”em1, em2, and so on).
• Using additional email signatures:  With iOS, users can only create a single signature for each account used. However, if you do wish to change up your signature line every once in awhile, all you have to do is create a new shortcut for each new line in the signature (i.e.-sig1, sig2, and so on).
• Taking care of tedious texts: Trim down long-winded texts and send them out much quicker with the help of shortcuts. Put your creativity to good use and make up a shortcut set to expand into commonly used phrases. For example, instead of saying, I’ll be on my way in five minutes, you could type in two shortcuts like this: OMW 5min! Busy at work? Let your friends know that you are occupied with this shortcut: CTN (short for “can’t talk now.”)

Last but not least, here are the steps to take when creating a shortcut in iOS:

1. Navigate to the Settings section of your iPhone.
2. Click on General, and then select Keyboard.
3. Select Add New Shortcut.
4. Once the phrase field appears, enter in the full version of text that you want displayed once you input the corresponding shortcut.
5. Under the Shortcut prompt, type in what abbreviation you’d like to use to correspond with that expanded text.

Once you have completed these steps, hit save. Follow this procedure again when creating extra shortcuts. It’s really that simple!

~Nedda