Apple Shortcuts for Unit Conversion:
9 Recipes

Apple Shortcuts hides one of the iPhone's most underused conversion superpowers. The Convert Measurement action takes a number and two units and returns the converted result — and you can wire it to Siri, a Home Screen icon, a Share Sheet, or trigger it from the clipboard.

Here are nine recipes you can build in under five minutes each. Together they fill most of the gaps that the iOS 18 Calculator still doesn't cover.

The pieces you'll use

• Ask for Input — prompts you for a number.
• Convert Measurement — the core action; takes a measurement plus a destination unit.
• Show Result or Quick Look — displays the answer.
• Get Clipboard — pulls a number from your clipboard so you don't have to retype.
• Add to Siri / Add to Home Screen — how you actually fire the shortcut without opening the Shortcuts app.

1. "Hey Siri, convert {number} feet to meters"

Add a Shortcut with these steps:

1. Receive: Dictation as input.
2. Convert Measurement → input number, from feet to meters.
3. Speak Text → the result.

Add to Siri with the phrase "feet to meters." Now you can be looking at a ceiling height in feet and ask Siri without picking up the phone.

2. Convert whatever's on your clipboard

Get Clipboard → Convert Measurement → Quick Look. Pin to the Home Screen as an icon. Copy 180 from a webpage, tap the icon, see 5.91 ft instantly.

3. One-tap °C ↔ °F switcher

Use a Menu action with two options ("C to F" and "F to C"), each running its own Convert Measurement, with an Ask for Input before the menu. One shortcut covers both directions.

4. Cooking shortcut: cups → grams (water, flour, sugar)

Convert Measurement doesn't have ingredient-specific densities, so this one uses a Dictionary: { water: 240, flour: 125, sugar: 200, butter: 227 } (grams per cup). Ask for input (cups), Choose from List (ingredient), Get Dictionary Value, multiply, Show Result.

5. "What's this in my currency?" (paste from a webpage)

Convert Measurement doesn't do currency, but a Get Contents of URL action against any free FX API does. Paste an amount, Shortcut hits the API, multiplies, returns the result. This is the one we cover in detail in our travel currency cheat sheet.

6. Recipe scaler (halve / double / 1.5×)

Ask for input (number), Ask for input (multiplier), multiply, Show Result. Two seconds to halve a recipe instead of doing it in your head while your hands are floury.

7. Share Sheet: convert from any selected text

Set the shortcut's Receives to "Text" from the Share Sheet, use Get Numbers from Text to extract the number, then Convert. Now you can highlight "The summit is at 14,505 feet" in Safari, tap Share, and get it in meters.

8. Standby Mode glance card

Add a Shortcut that returns one specific conversion you check constantly (e.g., your home → destination currency). Add it to StandBy by long-pressing a widget slot in StandBy mode. Glance at it from your nightstand.

9. "Convert and copy" — for engineers

Convert Measurement → Copy to Clipboard → Show Notification. Useful when you're writing a spec and need to paste the metric equivalent in parentheses without leaving your text editor.

Where Shortcuts hits its limits

Shortcuts is great for one-shot conversions and for Siri/automation triggers, but it falls apart for two cases:

• Mixed expressions — (8 ft + 6 in) → cm needs custom math actions for every operation, which gets unwieldy fast.
• Live crypto and 18+ currencies — possible with API calls, but you're building and maintaining a small app inside Shortcuts.

At that point a dedicated app pays for itself in minutes saved.