Automate Shake It On with macOS Shortcuts

Five intents are built in

Open the Shortcuts app on your Mac and search for "Shake It On." You'll see five actions:

• Toggle Shaking — flip the master switch. Optional Enable parameter (true/false/empty for toggle).
• Shake Now — trigger a single shake immediately, regardless of the interval timer.
• Snooze Shake It On — pause for N minutes (defaults to 15).
• Keep Mac Awake — force-active for N minutes, ignoring Only Shake If conditions (defaults to 60).
• Switch Shake It On Session — activate a saved Session by name.

Build a Shortcut

Open the Shortcuts app, click the + in the toolbar to start a new Shortcut, then drag any of the five actions into it. Configure parameters, save, and you can run it from the menu bar, the keyboard, or any other Shortcut.

Useful Shortcuts to build

Start meeting

Trigger from your calendar app or run manually before a call:

1. Snooze Shake It On — Minutes: 60
2. (Optional) Set a status in Slack or Teams

Render overnight

Trigger when you start a long Final Cut export:

1. Switch Shake It On Session — Session Name: Render
2. Keep Mac Awake — Minutes: 480

End-of-day cleanup

Run on a schedule at 6 PM:

1. Toggle Shaking — Enable: false
2. (Optional) Switch Session: Default

Pair with macOS automations

Shortcuts on macOS supports time-based automations and "when an app is opened" triggers. A few combinations worth setting up:

• When Zoom opens → run Snooze (60 min)
• When Final Cut Pro opens → switch to Render Session
• Every weekday at 9 AM → Toggle Shaking on
• Every weekday at 6 PM → Toggle Shaking off

Other ways to script

Shortcuts is the no-code path. Power users have two more:

• URL scheme — open shakeiton://snooze?minutes=15 from Terminal, a browser, Raycast, Alfred, or anything that can open a URL.
• AppleScript — full dictionary covering enable, disable, toggle, shake, snooze, keep awake, switch session.