How to close an ios app using shortcuts or stop app playing

Question

I am using ios 17.1

Sometimes I fall asleep with a TV show playing on my iPhone then I am awakened hours later at a noisy part of the show because it autoplayed next few episodes.

Being awakened is annoying.

If I remember before I start watching, I can set a sleep timer for an app to stop playing sound or video by using the Timer app and instead of an alarm select “stop playing”. But often I forget to set this.

So I would like something that stops the audio and ideally also the video at a set time of night. Eg 11.59pm

I was trying to do this with an automation in shortcuts app. I can see how to automatically open an app. I can’t see how you automatically close an app.

Another option would be to automatically start a timer for one minute at 11:59 with the timer set to ‘stop playing’ instead of an alarm sound. But I can’t see how to choose the end of timer action in shortcuts.

I suppose an alternative approach would be to use screen time, but I don’t really want to use that. I prefer to use an automation.

What is the instruction or code I need in my shortcut?

Answer 1

So I would like something that stops the audio and ideally also the video at a set time of night. Eg 11.59pm

This requires a single action item for the shortcut and an equally simple automation that runs at 11:59pm every night:

• Play/Pause Action of your device
• Time of Day Automation

Below is a screenshot of the single line Shortcut action. The name of the action is Play/Pause on device with the Pause action specified. If you leave it as Play/Pause it will toggle between states, meaning if it's playing, it will stop, but if stopped it will start to play.

Next, set up the automation so that it runs every day at a pre-determined time (11:59pm). It is set to run immediately as opposed to after confirmation so that it will stop the media being played without user intervention.

Here is the final "product" of the automation and shortcut. At 11:59 every day, whatever is playing will be stopped by this time of day automation.