My most useful IFTTT recipes

It is certainly possible to use IFTTT recipes for frivolous and inconsequential purposes, indeed there are many such recipes out there (including many of mine), but IFTTT does nonetheless have the potential for great time saving and functionality-adding purposes. Below is a shortlist of what I think are the best recipes I’ve created over a couple of years – judged by how useful they are and their popularity with other IFTTT users.

Interested to add the recipe?  Click the image, or use the links at the bottom of each section to find out more where applicable.

1. Boom! The best recipe for adding notes to Evernote with Siri.
There is a plethora of recipes on IFTTT that attempt to provide a way to capture notes into Evernote via Siri. The aim is absolutely understandable: Siri is an incredibly fast way to capture information on iOS and Evernote is the go to place to store your captured information. I did in fact create a recipe similar to those recipes out there which uses a Reminders list for Siri to capture to. But I promptly realised a couple of snags. A. The protocol is slightly awkward – using a reminder to take a note. B. The recipe required the IFTTT app to sync the reminder info to the cloud. Often that would mean you would have to open the app at some point to ensure it synced. So I put my mind to how Siri’s built in note-taking facility could be used. This recipe, with the accompanying iOS settings, is the result of that endeavour.
(Find out more)

2. Backup Contacts.
This recipe doubles as a backup for your iOS contacts and as a way for creating a database that could be imported elsewhere fairly easily.
(See recipe on IFTTT)

3. Create an Automated Timesheet.
When this recipe is combined with a Google spreadsheet I designed you can keep track of the hours you spend at your workplace and generate a timesheet automatically.  The recipe is triggered by your arrivals and departures from a location.  If you work at home you could still use the spreadsheet, but you would need another trigger.  I like Launch Centre Pro for creating “buttons” to trigger recipes, or there is now the Do app from IFTTT which would do it.
(Find out more)

4. Log an exchange rate.
If you regularly work with more than one currency you may find this recipe of use – especially if you already work with Google spreadsheets a lot. It creates a log of an exchange rate in a Google spreadsheet. You can then link the log with your other spreadsheets (they have to be Google spreadsheets) and automatically have an up to date exchange rate wherever you need it.
(See recipe on IFTTT)