How to use Book Tracker with Shortcuts and Siri

Book Tracker has one of the deepest Shortcuts integrations of any reading app on iOS. 95+ actions are exposed to Apple’s Shortcuts app, covering practically everything you can do in Book Tracker: adding books, logging progress, controlling the Reading Timer, adding notes and quotes, getting data out of your library, opening any list or entity. 9 of those actions come pre-built as Siri phrases that work right out of the box, no setup needed.

This tutorial covers what’s available, what works with Siri immediately, and how to build your own custom Shortcuts.

👉 If you’re new to Shortcuts, see Apple’s official guide: Use the Shortcuts app on iPhone or iPad.

The 9 Siri phrases that work without setup

These come pre-installed with Book Tracker. As soon as you launch the app once, Siri recognizes them. Just say “Hey Siri,” followed by the phrase.

ActionExample phrases
Open the book you’re currently reading“Open currently reading book in Book Tracker” · “Continue reading in Book Tracker”
Log reading progress“Log today’s reading in Book Tracker” · “Add pages read in Book Tracker”
Scan a book barcode“Scan a book in Book Tracker” · “Add book by scanning in Book Tracker”
Search a book online“Search Online in Book Tracker” · “Find a book online with Book Tracker”
Open a book list“Show my books in Book Tracker” · “See my library in Book Tracker”
Check Reading Challenge progress“Check challenge progress 2026 in Book Tracker” · “How’s my 2026 challenge in Book Tracker”
Add a quote to a book“Save a quote from Dune in Book Tracker” · “Quote from Dune in Book Tracker”
Add reading progress to a specific book“Update Dune reading progress in Book Tracker” · “Log pages read in Dune in Book Tracker”
Add listening progress to an audiobook“Add listening progress to Dune in Book Tracker” · “Log listened time in Dune in Book Tracker”

💡 The phrases are matched flexibly, variations work too. Siri also responds to non-English equivalents based on your device language.

For any other action (the remaining ~89), you need to build a Shortcut manually in the Shortcuts app, then you can attach a custom phrase to it via “Add to Siri”.

All 95+ actions, by category

Every action below is available in the Shortcuts app under Book Tracker in the action picker.

📚 Books (~20 actions)

Create, edit, delete, open. Get the currently reading book, get a book’s cover or progress. Log reading progress or listening progress. Open the barcode scanner, scanner reader (Bluetooth), online search, or manual entry. Open a list (All / Library / Wishlist / Not Owned / To Read / Reading / Read / DNF). Assign a rating.

Plus the 4 Reading Timer actions (covered separately below).

💭 Quotes (5 actions)

Create, edit, delete, open, get. Quotes can be created from text passed by another shortcut step, perfect for capturing from Safari, Apple Books, or any text input.

📝 Notes (5 actions)

Create, edit, delete, open, get.

🏷️ Per-entity CRUD (6 actions each, ~60 total)

For each of the following entity types you have Create / Edit / Delete / Open / Get Books / Assign actions:

  • Tags
  • Authors
  • Categories
  • Publishers
  • Series
  • Translators
  • Illustrators
  • Narrators

📍 Positions (12 actions)

Create / Edit / Delete / Open for Location, Bookcase, and Shelf, plus Assign Position and Get Books by Position.

🎯 Reading Challenge (4 actions)

Create / Edit / Delete a challenge; get the books that count toward it.

🔍 Smart List (1 action)

Open a specific Smart List.

🔎 System search (Apple Intelligence, iOS 18+)

Book Tracker exposes its library to Apple Intelligence’s system-wide search. You can search for books across the system without opening Book Tracker first.

The 4 Reading Timer actions

These deserve a section of their own, they’re the building blocks for any “while I read” automation.

ActionWhat it doesParameters
Start Reading TimerStarts a new reading session for a chosen bookBook (must be in Reading status, Pages or Percentage tracking, not Audiobooks)
Pause Reading TimerPauses the active timer—
Resume Reading TimerResumes the paused timer—
Stop Reading TimerStops the active timer, logs the progress, optionally moves the book to ReadPages or percentage value (optional — if omitted, Shortcuts asks at runtime)

These four actions are NOT among the 9 pre-built Siri phrases, but they are easy to wire up. See the morning routine walkthrough below.

Walkthrough A — “Log 30 pages on the current book”

A simple Shortcut that logs 30 pages of progress on whatever you’re currently reading. Useful as a one-tap action from the Home Screen.

  1. Open the Shortcuts app.
  2. Tap + to create a new shortcut, give it a name like “Log 30 pages”.
  3. Tap Add Action, search “Book Tracker”, and pick Get Currently Reading Book.
  4. Tap Add Action again. Search “Book Tracker” and pick Log Reading Progress.
  5. In the Log Reading Progress step:
    • Set Book to the “Currently Reading Book” variable that came from the previous step (Shortcuts auto-suggests it).
    • Set Pages to 30.
  6. (Optional) Add a final step like Show Notification with the text “Logged 30 pages” so you get a small confirmation.
  7. Done. Add the shortcut to the Home Screen, the Lock Screen, the Action Button, or attach a Siri phrase like “Log thirty pages”.

Variations:

  • Replace 30 with a “Get Numeric Input” step to ask each time.
  • Replace Log Reading Progress with Log Listening Progress for audiobooks.

Walkthrough B — “Morning reading routine”

A composite Shortcut that prepares your environment for a reading session and starts the timer. Trigger it manually or with an automation (time of day, NFC tag, location).

  1. Open Shortcuts → + → call it “Morning reading”.
  2. Add Set Focus (by Apple) → choose your reading focus (or Do Not Disturb).
  3. Add Play (by Apple → Music) → choose a calm playlist.
  4. Add Get Currently Reading Book (by Book Tracker).
  5. Add Start Reading Timer (by Book Tracker) → set Book to the variable from step 4.
  6. Save the shortcut.

When you run it (or when it auto-runs in the morning):

  • Focus mode silences notifications.
  • Music starts playing.
  • The Reading Timer starts on the book you’re currently reading.
  • The Live Activity / Dynamic Island appears on the iPhone.

To make it voice-activated, tap Add to Siri and record “Start my morning reading”. Now you can say “Hey Siri, start my morning reading” and it all runs.

Composing with Get actions (60 actions return data)

About 60 of the actions are Get actions that return data: a book, a list of books, a cover image, an array of quotes, etc. This means you can chain them together to build complex flows:

  • Get Currently Reading Book → Add Quote to that book (with custom text) → Share the resulting quote.
  • Get Books by Author (specify “Italo Calvino”) → Choose from list → Open Book that selection.
  • Get Books by Reading Challenge (specify current year) → Count → display a custom badge.
  • Get Book Cover (specify a book) → Save to Photos for an album of your reading life.
  • Get Notes (from current book) → Make PDF → email to yourself for archiving.

Build with curiosity — most things you can do in the app, you can do faster in Shortcuts once you’ve set it up once.

Where to put your Shortcuts

After building, you can run a Shortcut from:

  • The Shortcuts app — manually.
  • The Home Screen — add it as an icon.
  • The Lock Screen — single-tap.
  • The Action Button (iPhone 15 Pro+) — physical button.
  • Siri — via the phrase you assigned with “Add to Siri”.
  • Automation triggers — time of day, NFC tag, location, app opened/closed, focus changed.
  • The Shortcuts widget on Home or Lock Screen.

Best practices

  • Start with the 9 pre-built phrases — they work without any setup and cover the most frequent actions.
  • Build voice-friendly phrases. “Add 20 pages” is easier to say than “Increment my current book by twenty pages with timer disabled”.
  • Pair Shortcuts with Focus modes — a single voice command can silence notifications and start a timer.
  • Use automations for habit-building — e.g., a reading reminder every evening at 9 PM that asks how many pages you read today.
  • Compose Get → Action chains — they’re the most powerful Shortcuts pattern with Book Tracker.