Streamline Your Apps With This Incredible Productivity Hack

Since its inception in 2011, free web service If That Then This (IFTTT) has helped users execute chains of simple, conditional statements (called applets) to trigger actions across other web services and applications like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Want to automatically have a post you made on one platform show up on another? Wish you could save a social media image to Dropbox or Google Drive without extra steps? Looking to up your late night pizza delivery game (more on that later)? Well, IFTTT has applets for all of that. We’ve rounded up eight web services that can be streamlined, integrated, and expanded with IFTTT applets that you need to try, STAT.

1. Facebook

Urges to rage quit and fears of data mining aside, chances are you’re probably on Facebook. And when you’re on Facebook, you’re likely spending time incorporating content from other sources and web services into your posts—which involves a convoluted trail of copied and pasted links. IFTTT can help make this process more straight forward with applets that keep your Facebook and Twitter profile pictures in sync, automatically share personal Facebook posts to Facebook pages you manage, upload your Instagram photos to a Facebook photo album, and share new WordPress posts to your Facebook page. In the meantime, you can also verbally post to Facebook using OK Google and save Facebook photos you’re tagged in to Dropbox.

2. Twitter

Twitter’s succinct, 280-characters-or-less format makes it an ideal platform for short but frequent commentary and links to outside articles—exactly the kind of thing that could benefit from some automation and cross-platform compatibility. IFTTT checks those boxes with Twitter applets including one that lets you schedule tweets to be posted at a specific date and time, an RSS-to-Twitter applet that will tweet links to stories from selected RSS feeds, applets for tweeting links to your posts on Tumblr, WordPress, and Blogger, and an applet for creating new Pinterest pins directly from your tweets.

3. Instagram

Instagram is a self-contained photographic paradise, where the excesses of other social media platforms are stripped away and we can enjoy our friends’ images of cats, kids, vacations, and food without distraction. But, in cases where you need to get Instagram content onto other platforms, IFTTT has applets that will post your Instagram photos to Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and WordPress. You can also repost Instagram photos to Twitter when you use specific #hashtags, turn your most recent Instagram photo into your Android wallpaper, and send Instagram videos directly to your Pinterest board.

4. Spotify

As much fun as it is to listen to music on Spotify, discovering new music, organizing playlists, and sharing music with friends are all equally crucial parts of the Spotify experience. IFTTT will supercharge your Spotify with applets that email selected playlists to friends whenever they’re updated (perfect for party planning), archive your Discover Weekly tracks and add them to a dedicated playlist (no more missing out on tracks you intended to check out), add songs from YouTube videos that you like to a Spotify playlist, tweet out tracks you’ve favorited on Spotify, or save a list of your favorite songs in a Google Drive document.

5. Github

Github is an online platform where developers can share ideas and code samples, collaborate on projects, and it even has a jobs board. Of course, if you’re using Github for all these things it’s going to involve juggling a ridiculous amount of open tabs, trying to keep track of too many moving parts. Which is fine, because IFTTT has applets that keep track of assigned Github issues through iOS Reminders, by notifications directly from the IFTTT mobile app, via email, or through Google Calendar. IFTTT also has Github applets for tweeting out links to new projects you’re storing on Github, automatically posting Github issues to Slack chat, and adding project files to Dropbox.

6. Grants.gov

Anyone who’s ever researched and applied for a grant knows that there’s a lot of free money out there waiting to be used for worthy causes—but they also know that keeping up with grants and zeroing in on the right ones can be overwhelming. Grants.gov is an online system for federal grant-making agencies that stores information on over 1,000 federal grant programs. While that’s a lot of data to stay on top of, IFTTT helps make the process easier with applets that send email alerts whenever there are new education or health-related grant opportunities, grants that involve internships, or grants that mention your state or city.

7. Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is an under-the-radar source for design inspiration, with a Prints and Photograph Division that houses more than 14.5 million photos, posters, cartoons, architectural designs, and historical and fine art prints (many of which are viewable online), there’s enough material to help pull you out of any creative slump. IFTTT has an applet for adding newly added images from LOC’s Picture This prints blog to an iOS photo album, an applet that turns those new Picture This posts into wallpaper for your Android device, an applet that curates a weekend email digest of LOC blog posts, and an applet that will automatically tweet new Picture This posts to your Twitter followers.

8. Dominos

Whether you’re up late finishing a coding project, too busy unwinding from the work day to leave your couch, or trying to regain your equilibrium after a night on the town, Dominos is a stalwart in the emergency dining scene. IFTTT takes your Domino’s ordering and delivery experience to the next level with a number of applet possibilities. Highlights include an applet for iOS devices that adds a next-day reminder to pack your leftover Domino’s for lunch when your order hits the quality check process, a Gmail compatible applet that will email up to 20 Gmail addresses of family or friends when your order is in the oven, and an applet that uses the IFTTT mobile app to send you an SMS when your order is out for delivery. Munchies have never been more streamlined.