A shortcut is a quick way to get one or more tasks done with your apps. The Apple Shortcuts app lets you create your own shortcuts with multiple steps.

Articles + includes shortcuts to bookmark, list articles or annotations and export them in text, markdown or json format. All actions are available directly in the Apple Shortcuts app with iOS 16+ and can be freely combined with other ones.

Shortcuts
Bookmark	Bookmark article for reading later.
Find Article	List all articles or filter by properties (date, title, tags, ...).
Export Article	Save article metadata in text, markdown or json format.
Find Annotation	List all annotations or filter by properties (date, tags, ...).
Export Annotation	Save annotation metadata in text, markdown or json format.

The Bookmark shortcut allows to save an article for reading later. This action requires a url for input, that can be entered when running the shortcut or set from a variable of a previous step.

Bookmark article (example)

1. Add Bookmark shortcut
2. Set url or run to input a link

Individual articles can be exported in text, markdown or json format with the Export Article shortcut. When using the Find Article shortcut, you can also get a filtered list of articles to automate saving metadata and annotations of all your bookmarks.

Export article (example)

1. Add Export Article shortcut
2. Choose a format (text, markdown, json)
3. Choose one or run to select from latest

Export all articles (example)

1. Add Find Article shortcut
2. Optional: Add Filter (date, title, tag, ...)
3. Add Repeat with Each action after list output
4. Add Export Article shortcut for Repeat Item inside the loop
5. Use the Files app Save File action to save the export to e.g. iCloud Drive

Please note that exporting all articles only works with iOS 16.2+. Most likely this is an issue in Apple's Shortcuts app ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can export selected annotations in text, markdown or json format with the Export Annotation shortcut. The Find Annotation shortcut lets you get a filtered list of annotations that can be used to for example synchronize your notes and highlights with external services like Readwise.

Export annotation (example)

1. Add Export Annotation shortcut
2. Choose a format (text, markdown, json)
3. Choose one or run to select from latest

Export all annotations (example)

1. Add Find Annotation shortcut
2. Optional: Add Filter (date, title, tag, ...)
3. Add Repeat with Each action after list output
4. Add Dictionary and set properties from Repeat Item inside the loop
5. Create new Dictionary action to save the export output in the required format

How you structure or upload highlights depends on the service. Refer to their documentation to learn more:

Readwise
https://readwise.io/api_deets
Raindrop.io
https://developer.raindrop.io/v1/highlights

For example for the Readwise API, you could save the generated annotations.json file and then upload it using the following Mac terminal curl command:

curl -is -X POST https://readwise.io/api/v2/highlights/ \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Token READWISE_API_TOKEN" \
-d @annotations.json

With Shortcuts, annotation export and upload to external services can be automated. Here is an example for Readwise, but the same concepts can be used for other APIs as well. This shortcut is available for download as a template.

Readwise highlights (example)

1. Add Find Annotation shortcut with the following options:
   Sort by created or modified, order by latest, limit to 30
2. Add Choose from List action to select some or all annotations
3. Add a Repeat with Each action for the Chosen Items afterwards
4. For each item, create a Dictionary with the highlight attributes
5. Use a Count script action to determine the number of items in Repeat Results
6. For a single annotation, create a Text object with the highlights structure containing the result
7. Otherwise, set the highlights Dictionary array and use the Get Text from Input action to convert it
8. Insert another Text to capture the If Result used as input for the next step
9. Use a Get Contents of URL action and configure it to upload the highlights:
   POST request to Readwise highlights endpoint
   Request body type File set to the Text contents
   Headers for json content type and authorization token

In summary, the shortcut transforms your annotations to the required json structure and uploads it to the Readwise highlights API endpoint. The text conversion is a workaround, because the Get Contents action somehow does not accept dictionaries for json body type inputs. This solution is based on the custom json payload approach published in Alex W.'s blog.

Readwise Highlights Shortcut

You can download the Readwise highlight shortcut as a template and adjust it to your needs. This shortcut is provided as is without warranty of any kind.

1. Download Shortcut template:
   Articles Readwise Template.shortcut
2. Open in Shortcuts app, you might need to allow untrusted:
   https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210628
3. Edit the template to replace READWISE_API_TOKEN with your token:
   https://readwise.io/access_token

For other questions or more details about Shortcuts, please refer to Apple's official documentation and support.

Shortcuts User Guide:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/shortcuts