Lately, I’ve been experimenting with IFTT, which stands for ‘If This Then That’.
IFTTT is an app, a service that automatically does certain actions for you (the ‘that’) based on predefined triggers (the ‘this’).
Let me give a few examples:
- If I star a post in my Google Reader, add it to Buffer
- If an email comes into my Gmail with the word ‘newsletter’ in it, forward it to Evernote
- If I favorite a Tweet on Twitter, retweet it
- Download my Instagram photo’s automatically to Dropbox
There are many channels to choose from, including Facebook, Buffer, Twitter, Gmail, Evernote, Foursquare, etc. You activate each channel once, then create a task or ‘recipe’ which is a combination of a trigger and the corresponding action.
IFTTT checks every 15 minutes for new triggers and executes the action.
Here are a few of the recipes I’ve made for IFTTT:
Will It Save You Time?
IFTTT sounds like an incredible time saving app and in theory that’s the case. Some of the IFTTT recipes do save time. Take the automatic forward from starred Gmail mails to Evernote for instance, or in my case the automatic forwarding of Amazon orders to Evernote (you can even specify the inbox and add tags, very tailor made). Both very practical and useful.
There are also some really cool and nerdy ones, like getting a warning and reminder to bring your umbrella when it’s about to rain. Or getting a notification when certain people tweet, or when articles with specified key words are published somewhere on the web. You could even set up a call or a text to your cell phone at certain triggers (‘text me if my favorite blog posts a new post’). That’s time saving indeed.
I’m just not too convinced of the recipes that have to do with posting on social media.
The problem is that you can’t customize it. Take the recipe for starred tweets to the Buffer app that I’ve tried out. I can only add a standard text for it to add on every single tweet I create. So all my IFTTT-generated tweets to Buffer will say ‘Great post’ for instance, followed by the link and blog name. That’s not going to do you much good in social media, where the idea is to recommend posts personally.
It’s the same with the recipe for automatically posting new posts from my blog on Facebook. I tried that, but I can’t add anything other than a standard ‘New blog post’ and that really doesn’t work. Besides, automated posts to Facebook still don’t do as well as hand-posted updates, they don’t show up in people’s timelines quite as often.
Another suggestion for a recipe is to send tweets to followers who have retweeted you or mentioned you or to send new followers an automated tweet. Anyone who’s serious about social media really doesn’t want to go there.
So is IFTTT as time saving as it looks?
Definitely. There are loads of time saving possibilities here, especially for tasks you’d otherwise have to do yourself, manually. The more of the ‘channels’ IFTTT facilitates you use, the more interesting the app is. But I’d stay away from the social media posting options, because while they may save time, they sort of take the social out of it which is not what you want.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with IFTTT.
Got any cool or handy recipes to share?
Paul Clifford says
People always ask how I thank everyone who @ replies me. This is my secret. It’s a recipe on IFTTT.com. Try it out for yourself. Go to http://twitter.com/podcastinchurch (notice no “g”) and send me an “@ reply” and I’ll thank you (without the @ so we don’t get in a loop if you have the same system.
Paul
Rachel Blom says
I was wondering about that one, I haven’t tried it yet. Do you send an automatic reply to everyone who mentions you? What about when people tweet something like ‘Had a great meeting with @yourname’? I would think it looks kinda silly to send a thank you tweet for that…or have you found a way to filter those out?
Darius says
Love IFTTT – use it for email reminders every day, Evernote, favorite Instagram photos get archived to Dropbox, etc.
Not only is it great at automating a lot of stuff, it’s one of the few services I know of that works between different apps. Very reliable too, in my experience.
Rachel Blom says
Have to agree with you on being reliable, it hasn’t missed a recipe execution so far…Anything with Evernote scores bonus points with me, since that’s kind of my to go to app for everything. What kind of email reminders have you set up?
Darius says
Just some things that I need to remember to do on a semi-regular basis – daily/weekly, etc. Since email is a big part of my workflow, I don’t miss the reminder as easily as I do when I dismiss a reminder on my iPhone… Usually not time-sensitive, I just can’t forget to do it!
So far, when I set up an email reminder, I receive it within a minute at the most. (i.e. set up for 9pm, I would get it between 9pm and 9:01pm) Definitely better than I half-expected it would be…
Rachel Blom says
Cool, that’s a great idea then to make it part of your to do system. Nice!
Frank Gantz says
I use IFTTT for my eBay business. When I take packages to the post office or go to buy stuff to sell, I check-in on foursquare. The IFTTT action places that check-in on my google calendar. That is a nice shortcut and proof of the miles I drive for business.
I also use it with Craigslist to send me an email when somebody lists bubble-wrap which I use in shipping my products.
Rachel Blom says
That’s a great time saver and practical application for IFTT indeed! I read about that Craigslist recipe, since I’m in Europe I don’t do anything with Craigslist, but that sounds pretty nifty to me. Saves you a lot of time checking all the listings manually…
David Heys says
I have set up our church account to tweet 15 minutes before the services start to remind followers that our live stream is online.
I’m not sure if it’s useful or annoying!
David
Rachel Blom says
Interesting idea though, it does ensure you don’t forget it and you won’t have to spend time on it…
Jonathan says
I use IFTT to send starred Google Reader items to Pocket that I want to read up on, as well as get RSS updates for my email tracking. It also keeps me apprised of the weather in the area.
Rachel Blom says
I have a couple of recipes set up within Google Reader, for instance starred items being added to my Buffer app. I like that combo (though I still edit the tweets manually because I don’t want them all to look the same). That weather recipe is great, isn’t it?
Carl Franzon says
Thanks for some new uses here for IFTTT that I had not thought of.
One of my main uses is that starred items in Google Reader get saved to Evernote. It’s a nice way to archive blog posts. There are a few blogs I read that don’t format well in this though.