The iPhone Shortcut Everyone Deserves: One Control Center Button Opens Settings For Any App

The iPhone's Settings app is usually the place to go when you need to make changes to how your phone behaves. Or maybe you need to access your iCloud settings, or tweak the Camera app, or the way the iPhone battery charges. The Settings app is also where you have to go to find app-specific settings for Apple apps and applications you might have downloaded from the App Store. If you find yourself tweaking app settings regularly, you might be annoyed with the extra steps involved in accessing that app's settings page. The following shortcut is for you, as it lets you place a button in the Control Center that will take you directly to the settings page of the app loaded on the screen.

Courtesy of Quinn Nelson, the shortcut seen in the following clip is brilliant, as it allows you to bypass the tedious process of finding the app you need in the Settings app by pressing a single App Settings button in the Control Center:

Admittedly, finding the settings of a particular app is not a first-world problem. Apple cleaned up the Settings app in iOS 18 and grouped all apps under an Apps menu rather than listing them in alphabetical order at the end of all the iPhone settings. You have to tap an extra button to find the app you need if you're running iOS 18 or iOS 26 on your iPhone. However, the shortcut fixes this mild annoyance by speeding the process up. The shortcut also works in iPadOS 18 and iPad OS 26.

How to add an App Settings button to Control Center

Nelson made the shortcut available for download. You'll have to load the shortcut in Safari on the iPhone to access it in the Shortcuts app. Alternatively, you can create your own shortcut in the Shortcuts app by typing exactly the items seen in the following image.

Whatever the route, you now have a shortcut that lets you access any app's settings page with the tap of a button. However, that button must be added to Control Center.

In addition to tweaking the Settings app in iOS 18, Apple also gave iPhone users a big redesign for Control Center that lets you customize button shapes and placement, and add any control you might need, including shortcuts. To add the App Settings shortcut to the Control Center, follow these steps:

  • Bring down the Control Center panel by swiping down on the top right corner of the screen
  • Tap the plus button
  • Tap Add a control
  • Look for the Run Shortcut option
  • Tap Choose
  • Select App Settings

Once that's done, the button will be available to you anytime you need to access the settings of an app. Say you're in the Music app and want to customize music playback, all you need to do to access the Settings app is go to the Control Center and tap the new App Settings button. The shortcut recognizes the app on the screen and takes you to the app's settings menu.

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