HotlineSupport
Set up Hotline
You create one Shortcuts automation that sends notifications to Hotline. Hotline's channels then decide what rings.
- Open Hotline and allow Alarms when asked.
- Open Shortcuts → Automation → + → Notification, and select every app whose notifications might need to ring. Hotline's Shortcuts Setup screen lists the apps your channels use.
- Add the action Send to Hotline and map each of its fields to the notification's Shortcut Input variable.
- Back in Hotline, run the setup test. Then get a notification from one of the selected apps, like a text you send yourself in Messages. Hotline checks every field your automation sends. Anything mapped wrong is listed with the fix.
- Give each channel its rules: which apps, which people, which words, and for the Phone app, incoming or missed calls.
To try a real alarm without waiting for someone to message you, select Messages in the automation, give a channel the rule Apps: Messages and Contains: "hotline", then text "hotline test" to your own number and lock your iPhone. This uses one of your free alarms; a channel's Test Alarm button is always free.
Keep the automation to a single Send to Hotline action. Calling another shortcut with Run Shortcut doesn't pass the notification's details along.
Ready-made automation
Hotline's onboarding and its Shortcuts Setup screen (in Settings) offer two ready-made automations, so you don't have to map any fields. Phone & Messages comes with just those two: add it, then tap + in its trigger to add any other app that might ring. Popular Apps comes with Messages, WhatsApp, Signal, Ring and more, and is meant to be used as is: if you don't have all of them, changing its app list in Shortcuts clears the whole list. Either way, tap the arrow at the end of its app list and turn it on there.
You can also add them from here, on an iPhone with Hotline installed: Phone & Messages or Popular Apps.
Rules
A notification rings the first enabled channel, from the top of the list, whose rules all match. Empty rules match anything.
- Apps: the app's name as iOS shows it, such as Messages or Phone.
- From: the sender's name as it appears in the notification, such as a contact name.
- Contains: words in the title, subtitle or body. Turn on Regular expressions for patterns; they're case-insensitive and checked against each field on its own.
- Phone calls: "Incoming" rings while the phone is ringing; "Missed" rings after a missed call.
- Cooldown: ignores repeats from the same person for a while, such as the missed-call alert right after a ringing call.
- Only at certain times: days of the week and a time range, including overnight ranges like 22:00–07:00.
- Only when repeated: rings only when several matching notifications arrive close together, like 3 in 10 minutes.
Tap + to start from a template, such as calls from someone, missed calls, urgent messages, a doorbell or on-call pages. In the History tab, open a notification and tap Create Channel from This to make a channel for notifications like it. Stats, in the History tab, shows what Hotline received and rang over the last week.
In a channel's alarm settings, Repeat until stopped rings the alarm again every few minutes, up to 10 times, until you stop it. Snooze adds a Snooze button to the alarm.
Under a channel's settings, its preview shows which recent notifications it would have rung for, and why.
Troubleshooting
The alarm didn't ring
- Open Hotline's History tab. If there's no entry, the automation didn't run: check it's enabled and that the app is selected in it.
- If the entry says No match, no channel's rules matched. Open the channel and check its preview to see which condition failed.
- If it says Skipped (disabled), the matching channel is turned off.
- If it says Cooldown, the channel rang for the same person recently.
- If it says Failed, open it to see why. The most common cause is that Alarms aren't allowed: go to Settings → Hotline and allow Alarms.
- If it says Alarm already active, the channel's previous alarm was still active, so Hotline didn't stack another.
- If it says Locked (free alarms used), your free alarms are used up. Unlock Hotline Pro in Settings.
The channel says "Never matched" or "Never triggered"
No real notification has matched it yet. Tests don't count. Check the History tab to see whether notifications arrive and which channel they matched.
The wrong channel rings
The first matching channel from the top wins. Drag the more specific channel (for example, "Mom") above broader ones (for example, "All calls").
The alarm shows the channel name instead of the notification
Either "Show notification text" is off for that channel, or the notification had no title or body to show. Check that the Send to Hotline action sets Title and Body to Shortcut Input › Title and Shortcut Input › Body.
Hotline or what iOS already has
How is this different from Emergency Bypass?
Emergency Bypass is a setting on a contact. It lets that person's calls and texts sound while your iPhone is on Silent or in a Focus. If that's all you need, for one person's calls and texts, Bypass is enough and you don't need Hotline for it.
Hotline is for what Bypass doesn't cover:
- Other apps. A doorbell, a pager, a chat app or a shop's app has no contact to set Bypass on. Hotline can ring for any app you select in your automation.
- Rules. Bypass lets everything from that contact through. A channel can ring only for certain words, only at certain times, or only when something repeats, like 3 calls in 5 minutes.
- An alarm. With Bypass you hear the usual ringtone or text tone. Hotline rings a full-screen alarm with a sound for each channel, and snooze if you want it.
You can use both: Bypass for the people who should always get through, Hotline for the rest.
Can't I do this with a timer or an alarm in Shortcuts?
Yes, and for one simple trigger it works well. Each way has limits:
- Start Timer, set to 1 second, rings at once. It has no snooze and no choice of sound, and every matching notification starts another timer unless your shortcut keeps track of that itself.
- Create Alarm can carry the message in its label. Its time has no seconds, and an alarm set for the current minute rings tomorrow, so it rings up to a minute late. It has no choice of sound either, and each alarm stays in the Clock app until you delete it.
Hotline rings about a second after the notification, with the notification's text on the alarm, a sound for each channel, snooze and Repeat until stopped, and leaves nothing behind. Cooldowns and "3 in 10 minutes" need a memory of what has arrived. A shortcut can keep one, in a file or an app such as Data Jar, with the reading, counting and clearing built around it; Hotline keeps it for you, and its History shows why something did or didn't ring.
If you'd rather keep your own logic in Shortcuts, end your shortcut with the Ring Hotline Channel action, and Hotline only rings the alarm.
Send to Hotline or Ring Hotline Channel?
Send to Hotline hands Hotline the whole notification, and your channels' rules decide what rings. Hotline keeps track of cooldowns and repeats, and History lists every notification with what happened to it, including the ones that didn't ring. One automation covers everything.
Ring Hotline Channel rings the channel you name, without checking its rules, cooldown or "Only when repeated": your shortcut has already decided. The channel's alarm settings still apply, a channel that's turned off stays quiet, and each ring counts as an alarm. History shows only what your shortcut sent, and the action takes the notification's title, subtitle and body but not its app or sender.
Use Ring Hotline Channel when the decision needs something Hotline can't see, such as another app's data or a trigger that isn't a notification (a time, a place, an NFC tag). You can use both: the notification automation sends to Hotline, and other shortcuts ring channels directly.
Free alarms and Hotline Pro
What's free?
Test alarms are always free. Your first 3 real alarms from Shortcuts are free too, so you can check that your setup works. After that, the one-time Hotline Pro purchase ($4.99) unlocks unlimited alarms, your own alarm sounds and more History. There's no subscription.
Can I use my own alarm sound?
With Hotline Pro, yes. In a channel, tap Sound → Import Sound… and pick any audio file from Files (for example an M4A, MP3 or WAV). Sounds longer than 30 seconds are shortened. The built-in tones are free, and Hotline backups include the sounds your channels use.
What happens when the free alarms run out?
Hotline never goes silent without telling you. Your channels and automations stay as they are, and Hotline sends you a notification asking you to unlock Hotline Pro. Once you unlock, ringing resumes immediately.
Restore a purchase or share with family
Hotline Pro supports Family Sharing. On a new device, open Hotline → Settings → Restore Purchase.
Refunds
Purchases are handled by Apple. Request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com.
Contact
Still stuck? Email [email protected] with your iOS version and what the History tab shows. Please don't send notification contents you'd rather keep private.