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, plus Hotline itself for the setup test. Hotline's Shortcuts Setup screen lists the apps your channels use.
- Choose Run Immediately and turn off Notify When Run.
- Add the action Send to Hotline, tap Show More, and set App, Sender, Title, Subtitle, Body, Date and Time Sensitive to the matching Shortcut Input values.
- Back in Hotline, run the setup test. Hotline posts a test notification, your automation sends it back, and every field is checked. 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.
Hotline's own notifications never ring a channel. To try a real alarm without waiting for someone to message you, also select Reminders in the automation, give a channel the rule Apps: Reminders and Contains: "hotline", then create a reminder called "hotline test" due in two minutes.
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 offers a ready-made automation, so you don't have to map any fields. Add it, select your apps (they aren't included), and turn it on with the switch at the top. The download will also be available here at launch.
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 Activity tab, open a notification and tap Create Channel from This to make a channel for notifications like it. Stats shows what Hotline received and rang over the last week.
In a channel's alarm settings, Ring again until stopped repeats the alarm every few minutes until you tap Stop.
Use Preview Rules in a channel to see which recent notifications it would have rung for, and why.
Troubleshooting
The alarm didn't ring
- Open Hotline's Activity tab. If there's no entry, the automation didn't run: check it's enabled, set to Run Immediately, and that the app is selected in it.
- If the entry says No match, no channel's rules matched. Open the channel's Preview Rules to see which condition failed.
- If it says Skipped, 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 Coalesced, the channel's previous alarm was still active, so Hotline didn't stack another.
The channel says "Never triggered"
No real notification has rung it yet. Tests don't count. Check the Activity 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 automation doesn't pass the notification's title. In the Send to Hotline action, set Title to Shortcut Input › Title.
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. There's no subscription.
What happens when the free alarms run out?
Hotline never goes silent without telling you. Your channels and automations stay as they are, and Shortcuts shows a message asking you to unlock Hotline. 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 Purchases.
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 Activity tab shows. Please don't send notification contents you'd rather keep private.