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How to Use Claude in Shortcuts on iPhone and Mac

With AI Actions

  1. Get an API key in the Claude Console. Anthropic bills the API separately from a Claude plan, so you pay for what you use.
  2. Open AI Actions, open “Settings”, and paste the key in “Anthropic API Key”.
  3. In the Shortcuts app, make a new shortcut, and add the “Ask Claude” action of AI Actions.
  4. Type your prompt, or insert a variable, like the text that the shortcut gets. Expand the action to choose the model, and to add a system prompt, images, or PDFs.
  5. Run the shortcut. The result, “Claude Reply”, is text that the next action can use.

AI Actions is free. It stores your API key in the keychain, not in the shortcut, so you can share your shortcuts. The action does not remember earlier conversations.

Tips

  • “Effort” sets how much Claude thinks, and “Max Output Tokens” limits the length of the reply.
  • To get a dictionary, end your prompt with “Return the result as a JSON object. Don’t include any other text than the JSON object.”, and give the result to the “Get Dictionary from Input” action.
  • For ChatGPT and other models, see how to use ChatGPT in Shortcuts.

Get AI Actions

AI actions for the Shortcuts app

Download on the App Store

Free

Platforms
macOS, iOS, visionOS
Requires
macOS, iOS, or visionOS 27 or later
Category
Utilities
Released
September 2023
Privacy
Read the policy
Updated
October 2026
Version
1.5.2
Size
8 MB
US App Store rating
4.6/5 (27 ratings)

More about AI Actions

Without an app

The Claude app for iPhone has its own “Ask Claude” action, on iOS 18 and later:

  1. Install the Claude app.
  2. In the Shortcuts app, make a new shortcut, and add the “Ask Claude” action of the Claude app.
  3. Type your prompt in the action, and run the shortcut.

It uses the default model of the Claude app, and the messages count for the usage limit of your plan. You can also say “Ask Claude” to Siri. Anthropic’s instructions.

If you have the Claude app and only want an answer in a shortcut, use this. AI Actions is for when you want to choose the model and the other options, or pay for the API and not for a plan.

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