How to use IFTTT recipes

While you can experiment using the other online channels, the true power of IFTTT is when you combine it with your mobile phone (Android or iOS). Using these devices, you can do things, such as trigger a rule when you reach a certain location. Android devices have a lot more options and let you access more features on the phone, while iOS is a lot more limited in what it will do; however, both let you use location based services. With that in mind, we’ll show you how to send a message to a person when you reach a location. This could be to automatically tell them that you’re on the way.

To use activate location features and create these rules, you need the IFTTT app for your phone. Once it’s installed log in to your account and tap the mortar and pestle icon at the top-right to access your recipes, then click the cog icon at the bottom right of the screen to access settings. Tap Channels to view the available ones. If you’ve got an Android device, tap Android Location and follow the steps through; if you’ve got an iPhone, tap iOS Location and follow the steps through to activate it.

Next you need to enable a channel that lets you send a message to someone. The default IFTTT email channel is just to send emails to your own account, so we need to use something else. Android uses can use the Android SMS channel, but there’s no iOS equivalent. Instead, we’re going to use Gmail, although Twitter and its Direct Message (DM) system is also an option.

Go back to the Channels screen on your phone and tap Gmail, then Activate. Enter your login details and then tap the button to give IFTT access to your Gmail.

Now go back to the Recipe screen on your app (go to the home screen and tap the pestle and mortar icon). Tap the + button to start and new Recipe and tap the blue ‘+’ icon to select a Trigger. Now select Android Location or iOS Location, depending on the type of smartphone that you have. You’ll see that there are three options: when you enter an area, when you exit an area, or when you enter or exit an area. For our example, we’ll create a rule that sends an email message when we leave work to say that we’re on our way home, so select ‘You exit an area’. 

On the map screen use the Search bar to find the location. You’ll see a blue circle surrounding this area. This is the boundary of the area and the rule is triggered when you leave this area: you can use the ‘-‘ button to zoom out and make the circle cover a wider area and the ‘+’ button to zoom in and cover a smaller area. Tap Next when you’re done. 

Next, tap the red ‘+’ icon to select the action to perform, and select the Gmail Channel. Tap Send an email, then enter the address of the person that you want to email. Tap Next to complete the rule and choose if you want a notification every time this rule is triggered.

Back on the Recipe screen, you can tap your new rule to edit it, as the initial configuration process doesn’t let you edit the contents of the email. Tap Edit and scroll down and you’ll see that you’ve got a detailed message, but it’s a bit basic. Fortunately, you can completely edit this. Tap any box to start editing and the flask icon to insert dynamically created ingredients. For example, in the subject headline, ‘I exited an area OccurredAt’, will replace OccurredAt with the time the rule was triggered. You may want to change this to, ‘Just left work at OccurredAt’.

You can also edit the body copy, which contains a similar message, only with a link to the map (LocationMapUrl), while the attachment (LocationMapImageUrl, which is a graphic of the map you can see in rule), should be fine. Tap Update when you’re done.