Quick Launching of Files and Folders on iOS and iPadOS 14
TIPS
Tips and tricks to master your apps and be more productive.
Quick Launching of Files and Folders on iOS and iPadOS 14
One of the changes I’ve long hoped to see on iPhone and iPad, especially since beginning grad school last year and working with a lot of different documents as a result, is an easier and faster way to open specific files or folders from the Files app. Last year Federico very kindly created a shortcut for just this task, which I didn’t think possible at the time. By combining Scriptable and file bookmarks, his FS Bookmarks shortcut enabled creating custom launchers for files and folders. It took a few steps to set each launcher up, but it worked flawlessly, and I’ve gotten good use out of the shortcut over the past year.
This week, however, I discovered that in iOS and iPadOS 14 there’s now an even easier way to launch content from the Files app, still using Shortcuts. For the first time, you can now go to Apps ⇾ Files from the Shortcuts action menu and find suggestions of files and folders from the Files app that you’ve recently accessed. A shortcut you create using one of these suggested actions will serve as a launcher that quickly opens that file or folder inside Files.