Automation for people who are not programmers
Watch yourself use a phone for a day and you will find the same small rituals: silent mode at night, the map and the music when you get in the car, the ringer down when you walk into the office. Each is a rule of the form when this happens, do that. Phones now handle some of these themselves, and an automation app does the rest, provided you spend half an hour building the rules once.
Pick the tool that matches how you think
| Tool | How you build a rule | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built in modes and routines | Menus in the system settings | Free | Bedtime, driving and work, if your phone has them |
| MacroDroid | Pick a trigger, an action and a condition | Free for a few rules | A first automation app |
| Automate | Draw a flowchart of blocks | Free with a block limit | Visual thinkers |
| Tasker | Profiles, tasks and variables | Paid | Anything at all, with patience |
| IFTTT | Connect online services | Small free tier | Rules involving the web rather than the phone |
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Five rules worth building first
- Charger connected after 11 at night: Do Not Disturb on The simplest rule and the one that changes sleep. The charger is a better signal than a fixed time, because it only fires once you have actually gone to bed.
- Car Bluetooth connected: open the map, start the music Two taps saved on every journey, and the phone never needs touching while driving.
- Headphones connected: open the podcast app Or the music app, at the volume you actually use.
- Arrive at work: ringer down. Leave: ringer back up Location triggers cost more battery than the others, so use the office WiFi network as the trigger where you can.
- Battery below 20 per cent: battery saver on, sync off Some actions, including changing certain system settings, need an extra permission granted once from a computer. The apps walk you through it.
- Sound modes and Do Not Disturb
- Opening apps on a trigger
- Notifications and reminders
- Anything based on time, charging or Bluetooth
- Switching WiFi or mobile data on newer Android
- Tapping buttons inside other apps
- Anything that must run while battery saving is strict
- Rules that depend on precise location indoors
The apps
The easiest way in. Choose a trigger, an action and an optional condition from lists, and a first rule takes two minutes. The free version covers a handful of rules.
Tasker. The most capable automation app on any phone and the one with the steepest start. Paid, with a very large community of shared projects.
Rules drawn as flowcharts, which suits anyone who thinks in diagrams. Free, with a limit on how many blocks can run at once.
Connects web services rather than phone settings: save attachments to storage, log something to a spreadsheet. The free tier has become small.
Samsung's rules engine, built into the settings of recent Galaxy phones as Modes and Routines. Try it before installing anything else.
Google Home. Household routines for lights, speakers and plugs, triggered by the time or by a phrase to the assistant.
For a house already running Home Assistant. It turns the phone's battery, alarm and location into triggers for the house.
A Tasker plug-in that taps and swipes inside other apps, for the jobs no setting exposes.
Reads and creates notifications from inside a rule, so a notification from one app can set off something in another.
Sends text, files and commands between your devices, and connects rules on the phone to a computer.
Writes NFC stickers. Put one by the bed, on the desk and in the car, and a tap runs the rule for that place.
The companion that carries out the tasks written to a tag by the previous app.
Button Mapper. Remaps the volume and other hardware keys, such as a long press for the torch, on the phones that allow it.
Lets supporting apps use system permissions without root, after starting it over wireless debugging, again after each restart. Several automation apps use it for their stronger actions.
Replies to texts automatically while you drive or sleep, a rule people often ask for and most phones do not offer in their settings.
Not an automation app. It tests how aggressively your phone stops background apps and shows the settings to change, which is why rules stop firing.
Why a rule stops working after a week
Almost always battery optimisation. Android, and more aggressively several manufacturers, stops background apps that have not been opened recently, and an automation app is by definition an app you never open. Exempt it from battery optimisation, and on phones with their own sleep lists, add it to the list of apps that never sleep.
The other common cause is a permission that was quietly removed. Android revokes permissions from apps it considers unused, so check that the setting to pause activity for unused apps is off for your automation app.
Use the built in routines first, then one app for the rest. Five good rules beat fifty clever ones.
Frequently asked questions
Do automation apps drain the battery?
Time, charging and Bluetooth triggers cost almost nothing. Location and constant sensor checks cost more. A handful of well chosen rules makes no visible difference.
Do I need root?
Not for the rules in this article. A few actions need a permission granted once over a USB or wireless debugging connection, which the apps explain step by step.
Can I share a rule with someone else?
MacroDroid, Automate and Tasker can all export rules, and each has a community library of shared ones. Read a shared rule before importing it, since it runs with whatever permissions the app holds.
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