

If you're confused already, say that you wanted your Android phone to turn on your smart lights when you got home, as long as it's past a certain time of day. If you're launching all your tasks manually, you don't need profiles. Profiles are basically containers for one or more contexts, and once they're all met, the specified task starts. Those conditions could be the time of day, or the GPS location of your phone, or whatever (Tasker can recognize a dizzying number of conditions). This tab holds what are called contexts - conditions that need to be met for certain tasks to run. Tasks can be launched automatically or manually (with a press on a widget, for example), and you can combine them together in all kinds of interesting ways.įor automated launching, there's the Profiles tab on the far left. Let's start with the Tasks tab, second from the left: tasks are just actions or groups of actions you want to be carried out, such as muting the volume, launching an app, or turning off Bluetooth.

Pull up the tasker for mac osx software#
Here we'll guide you through the key Tasker concepts and features you need to know about, as briefly and succinctly as we can, and then give you a task you can set up from scratch - that should then give you the confidence to start playing around with the software on your own.ĭownload and open Tasker, and don't let yourself be daunted: it's simpler than it looks. Perhaps the best way of explaining Tasker is to give some examples of what it can do: it can start playing podcasts when your phone connects to your car stereo, it can reply to a "where are you?" text with your GPS location, it can turn on your smart lights at sunset, it can pause background music playback when a particular app is open (and resume it afterwards), and so on and so on. The possibilities are almost limitless, provided you can get your head around it to begin with. It combines triggers (such as reaching a location, or opening up a particular app) with actions (so turning off Wi-Fi, or boosting screen brightness). We'll flatten the learning curve a little for you, so you can dive in and start creating automations and functions as quickly as possible, with the minimum of fuss or confusion.įor the completely uninitiated, Tasker - which does cost $3.49 - lets you add extra customizations and automations to Android phone. Tasker is one of the most powerful apps on the Play Store for automating tasks on your smartphone, but it's far from the easiest to get to grips with, which is where this guide comes in.
