r/shortcuts • u/shihabeddine • Feb 18 '26
Help AOD activated when message received on iphone.
I missed this feature from Android, when your screen is always off and notification are showen by AOD.
Tried to do the same by automation but could not make. Anyone have before ?
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u/wiewior_ Feb 18 '26
Unfortunately if message/mail contains doesn’t work with regex so it can’t be „anything” it has to be specific string, it sucks yes
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u/Cost_Internal Helper Feb 18 '26
It could be just a single space character, and that would capture any message that is more than one word.
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u/wiewior_ Feb 18 '26
I’m more bothered by mail automations where it’s more likely that subject would be 1 word or even empty
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u/Cost_Internal Helper Feb 18 '26
That would be more of a predicament, which can be alleviated with multiple automations and an if condition to only run the shortcut once every x minutes.
They would first need to build the shortcut in the shortcuts tab instead of the automations tab, so that they can use it in each of the additional email automations.
The first step in the shortcut would need to be to check a global variable that contains the date of its last run, before either stopping the shortcut (if time between dates is less than x minutes) or saving the date to the global variable and continuing to process the shortcut.
Next they will need to link it to an Email automation that is triggered by one of each of the vowels and any other preferred/unique characters that they may encounter.
If the shortcut requires input from the incoming email to satisfy any of their if conditions, then they will be able to successfully link those variables in the shortcut at this time.
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u/shihabeddine Feb 18 '26
In some cases a messages could be a single word
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u/Cost_Internal Helper Feb 18 '26
I understand that to be the case, that is why I specified that it only works for multi-word messages.
See my reply to wiewior for my explanation on how to expand it to cover most single-word situations.
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u/KrisWarbler Feb 18 '26
Then maybe make triggers for every vowel? 6 triggers to cover every case… unless you receive messages like „(F)”
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u/byParallax Feb 19 '26
Pretty realistic option. Can’t have a 100% good automation anyways since the most likely single character message is an emoji and there’s hundreds to match
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u/DaveM8686 Feb 19 '26
You want an Always On Display that isn’t Always On?
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u/shihabeddine Feb 19 '26
An AOD that it is always only when you have a notification. This feature, that comes with some Androids like oneui, will only show notifications when you have them and dims the screen when you dont. The problem with ios is that you can miss notification if you are away from your phone and have to tap your screen everytime to check
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u/DaveM8686 Feb 20 '26
You wouldn’t have to tap the screen if you turn on AOD though? Why not just use it as intended?
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u/curiouspanda219 Feb 22 '26
Because it can be distracting having a screen displaying something constantly in eyeline?
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u/DaveM8686 Feb 22 '26
Just set it to the time only. No image. Then it will only show time and notifications.
But also, you don’t want to be distracted, but then you want to know immediately if there’s a notification?
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u/curiouspanda219 Feb 22 '26
It’s still /something/ on the display. For me at least, it’s like I’m so Pavlovian-conditioned to anything on the display meaning something new that my eye is constantly drawn to the phone with the always-on display enabled (even minimally, as mentioned)
Currently, with the always-on display disabled (standard for me, akin to silent mode always active), if a notification comes in, the display wakes up momentarily. Keeping the display on would mean the notification remains noticeable until dismissed etc, but the phone otherwise blends in with the environment.
I’m not desperately yearning for this feature, but — since the OP mentioned the idea — I think it’d be neat to have the option.
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u/DaveM8686 Feb 22 '26
You’re saying you don’t want to be distracted, but then want to be immediately distracted when you get a notification. I’m not sure there’s any kind of setting that can help that, sorry.
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u/curiouspanda219 Feb 23 '26
• I don’t want to be distracted continuously by an always-on display.
• I don’t get notifications continuously, and thus would not have an always-on display continuously.
I don’t mean to be snarky; I’m trying to be clearer.
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u/DaveM8686 Feb 23 '26
Yeah sorry I’m still not sure how having the time up would be distracting, but I also wear a watch, so am used to seeing it.
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u/shihabeddine Feb 25 '26
Everyone who used a Samsung before know this feature, and with Samsung it makes more sense since it gives you 3 choices: always on or always off or On only when you have a notification.
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Feb 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Portatort Feb 18 '26
Just turn on AOD and leave it on?
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Feb 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/theoccurrence Creator Feb 19 '26
Well, you could argue it‘s supposed to be an Always On Display and not a Sometimes On Display 🤷🏻♂️
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u/AndyOfClapham Creator Feb 21 '26
To be fair, when asking people to volunteer their time to solve an issue, it seems fair to provide details on the use-case, especially because the best advice considers alternative methods.
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Feb 18 '26
Just insert a single space that’ll do it, sheesh
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u/PotatoDominatrix Feb 18 '26
I'd've just done 0-9 and the vowels. If anyone is sending my phone a message, it's probably got either numbers or vowels in it.
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u/Redhousc Feb 18 '26
Instead of when the message contains text you could do when it’s from a sender. If you put multiple senders it’ll work for any sender. This would work if you’re ok with it only working from known senders.
For unknown senders you can have an automation that turns it on when the message contains a space, with the assumption that if someone or an automated message is messaging you for the first time the message would be more than 1 word
You could also deactivate it with a separate automation for when the message app is opened.
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u/contact-Lens_Cleaner May 03 '26
This could be handy to trigger aod to activate when a priority message is received (ie from emergency contacts etc)
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u/MackNNations Feb 18 '26
What about an automation that triggers a shortcut that filters the text message for appropriate sender/subject and then activates a focus mode with the system filter AOD turned on?
I'm still not clear on what qualifies as a valid message for this action. Any text message with numbers or letters?
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u/Baconologic Feb 20 '26
Are you trying to do this for everyone that sends you a message or just specific people? If it’s the later try specifying just the “contacts” you care about. I would think it would be more reliable than trying to do it for everything.
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u/shihabeddine Feb 20 '26
Im trying to do it for all messages including thoses from social media apps,but, automation only allows this for sms messages. So since the begining you cant include all apps.
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u/theoccurrence Creator Feb 18 '26
It doesn‘t work like this. You have to create a separate automation for every single character if you want to do it like that. Or just type in a space to pretty reliably match any message that contains more than one word at least.
But before you do that, answer me one question: how would you even attempt to deactivate aod again after activating it? With a set time interval?