20 Applets, millions of runs, and we're only halfway through 2026

Halfway through 2026 and a clear picture is forming. Some Applets get set up and forgotten (in a good way). Some get shared around until half the people you know have them running. Some become such a regular part of the day that you'd notice if they stopped. These 20 managed all of that.

That's where IFTTT (If This Then That) comes in. It connects over 1000 apps and devices so they work together without you having to manage everything manually. You decide what triggers what, set it up once, and IFTTT handles everything from there.

Here are the 20 Applets that defined the first half of 2026, broken down by category.

Your soundtrack, sorted

Discover Weekly refreshes every Monday and wipes the previous week clean. If you didn't save that one song you kept meaning to get back to, it's gone. This year, a lot of people decided that wasn't going to happen anymore.

The rest of this section covers the full picture: wake up to Spotify instead of whatever that default alarm sound is, turn your liked songs into an actual usable playlist, and kick off playback with a single tap.

Less managing, more doing

Nobody sat down in January and said "I really want to be more hands-on about moving data between my apps." And yet, here we are. The Applets in this section exist for exactly that reason.

A reminder that actually shows up in the right app. A note that makes it to your inbox instead of getting forgotten. None of these are life-changing on their own, but together they make the day run a bit smoother.

Look up more often

Not everything on this list is about saving time. Some of it is just about paying more attention to what's going on around you, and occasionally, above you.

NASA puts out a genuinely stunning image every single day. This year, people stopped letting it disappear into a website nobody visits and started pulling it straight into their daily routine: on their wallpaper, in their iOS Reading List. And the weather tomorrow is already decided, you might as well find out before you leave the house in the wrong jacket.

Your phone, set up the way it should be

Your phone is supposed to make life easier. Somehow it still manages to ring at the worst moment, lose texts when you're on the wrong device, and turn your camera roll into a completely unsearchable pile of screenshots.

These four Applets fix the most frustrating parts of managing a phone in 2026. Texts that show up where you need them, a phone that knows when to stay silent at work, and screenshots that actually go somewhere useful, and reminders that make it to the right app.

Getting from A to B, faster

You hang up from a call where someone just gave you an address. Normally you'd switch apps, open Maps, type it in, wait for it to load, and finally get going. With this Applet, navigation is already running before you've put your phone down, one of those things where you wonder why it wasn't always like this.

The second one is for anyone who's ever tried to remember how long they spent at a client site, a co-working space, or anywhere else that matters on a timesheet. It logs your time at locations automatically to Google Sheets, so the data is already there when you need it.

Your home, running itself

The best smart home setup is the one you don't have to think about. Close your garage door with a voice command instead of driving back to check. Set a scene with a single button tap instead of adjusting everything individually. These two Applets are a good example of what it looks like when your home actually responds to you.

For when the game doesn't stop

Rust doesn't care that you're asleep. Your base can get raided at 3AM on a Tuesday and you'd have no idea until morning, by which point it's already too late. This Applet calls your phone the moment a smart alarm gets triggered with a Raid alert. Whether you get up and deal with it is your call. At least now you get to make that call.

And if that isn't enough, the second Applet sends you a notification the moment your character gets killed. Because sometimes you need to know immediately, even when you're not playing.

That's the first half of 2026. The second half is already looking different.

This month alone we added 30+ new services: Gemini, Steam, Diablo III, Fireflies.ai, Circle, ElevenLabs, Kalshi, and more. New categories, new use cases, new Applets people haven't discovered yet. If the last five months are anything to go by, the next top 20 is going to look pretty different from this one.

These are some of the new Applets worth keeping an eye on

Take a look at everything that's new in May, there's a good chance something on the list is exactly what your current setup needs.

20 Applets down, the rest is up to you

You don't need to set all of these up at once. Pick the one that solves the most obvious problem in your day, turn it on, and see how it goes. Most people start with one and end up running several, that's just what happens when things start working the way they should.

There are over 1000 services connected to IFTTT, which means the combinations go well beyond this list. Browse already-published Applets or build your own. Start a free trial of IFTTT Pro and see what your setup could look like.