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[Update] Apple's working on a fix to broken iCloud shortcut sharing

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Siri Shortcuts
Siri Shortcuts (Image credit: Joseph Keller / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Anyone sharing a shortcut from the Shortcuts app via iCloud is out of luck right now.
  • Users are receiving errors suggesting the destination shortcut could not be found.
  • Apple says it is working on a fix.

Update, March 25 (07:50 am ET): Service is now being restored with some iCloud links working as expected.

Update, March 25 (05:00 am ET): Apple has released a statement confirming it is looking into the problem.

One of the great things about the Shortcuts app on iOS and iPadOS is the fact you can share your shortcuts with other people via iCloud links. Except, as of right now, not so much. As a ton of people are finding out right now, iCloud shortcut sharing is very broken.

As spotted by people on Reddit and across Twitter, clicking an iCloud link that should open a shortcut is instead throwing an error message.

That's particularly problematic for sites like MacStories which have a huge – and hugely useful – library of shortcuts that can (normally) be accessed via such links. But again, today none of those links are working and there's nothing anyone can do about it until Apple rolls out a fix, Whatever that fix may be.

My uneducated assumption right here, right now, is that Apple changed something server-side that has invalidated every iCloud shortcut link that exists. Whether Apple knows what that change was remains to be seen. At this point in time it isn't even clear whether Apple knows it has a problem to fix. I've reached out to Apple and asked the question and I'll update this post if and when I receive an answer.

Shortcuts can come in handy for all kinds of things, not least making smart gadgets work with Siri even if they don't support HomeKit!

Update, March 25 (05:00 am ET) — Statement from Apple.

In a statement to iMore, Apple has confirmed it is aware of an issue where previously shared shortcuts are currently unavailable. Apple says that newly shared shortcuts are still available, and says "we are working to restore previously shared shortcuts as quickly as possible."

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.