Want to add the same event every week, but find the Calendar app’s “repeat event” feature a hassle when times need to vary day to day? Apple’s Shortcuts app on Mac solves this problem. This article shows how to build a shortcut that creates a full week of events with a single click. Once set up, you can easily create events like breakfast, meetings, or routine tasks, with more flexibility than a repeating event offers.
Mac’s Calendar app has a repeat event feature that automatically repeats the same event. However, when you try to shift the time of an event created with repeat settings, a confirmation dialog always appears: “Change this event only, or all future events?” Since this pops up every time you move something, it gets annoying when the time varies from day to day.
That said, manually creating an event you add every day (or every week) each time is also tedious. This shortcut was created to solve that problem.
Add Multiple Days’ Events with One Click
This shortcut lets you add events for multiple days with a single click. In my case, I put breakfast, lunch, and dinner into my calendar, so being able to create several events for one day at once is convenient. In this example, we’ll create events for seven days, but the number of days can be freely changed.
The Key Is the “Repeat” Action
Let’s go over how to actually build it. The key lies in how you use the “Repeat” action and the “Adjust Date” action. The Shortcuts app doesn’t have particularly thorough official documentation, which I think leaves many people unable to use it effectively. I decided to write this article hoping that a concrete walkthrough would be useful to some.
After launching the Shortcuts app, press the plus button near the top to create a new shortcut.First, click next to the icon and enter a title for the shortcut. Next, type “Repeat” into the search field in the right-hand panel to find the “Repeat” action, then drag and drop it to the left side. This registers two actions. Any actions placed between these two Repeat actions will be repeated.Click where it says “1 time” and a dialog will appear—enter the number of times you want to repeat.Let’s add the next action. Search for “Adjust Date” in the right-hand panel, then drag and drop it into the position shown in the figure.Next, click the “0” in “0 seconds” and select “Repeat Index.”Right-click the “Date” field and select “Current Date.”Then click “seconds” and change it to “days.” This completes the setup for this action. Let’s add the next action. Find the “New Event” action and drag and drop it below the previous action. Enter the event name afterward.Right-click “Tomorrow at noon” and select “Adjusted Date.”Click right next to “Adjusted Date” to bring up a cursor, then type the time directly after “Adjusted Date”. In this case, “at 9:30” is the part that was entered. Next, set the end time the same way.Click the round button to the right of “Add Event” and options will appear as shown. Uncheck “Show Compose Sheet.” If “Show Compose Sheet” is checked, a confirmation dialog appears at runtime, preventing the shortcut from running automatically.Click the “Adjusted Date” field to change its format. Set the “Time Format” dropdown to “None.”Set the end time the same way.To automatically add multiple events in one day, add another “New Event” action. Duplicating the action you already made with Option + drag saves some effort.After duplicating, change the time and event name. This completes the shortcut.Clicking a created shortcut in the list lets you change its icon, among other things. Adding it to the Dock also makes it quick to access whenever you need it.
Even Small Time Savings Add Up
Considering the time spent trial-and-erroring to build this shortcut, it may not add up to much time savings overall. Still, this drive to pursue efficiency feels like it contributes to personal growth—or so I’d like to think.
