Difference between revisions of "Overview"

Latest revision as of 19:40, 14 April 2024

MacroDroid is an Android application, which automates repetitive tasks to save time, battery and effort needed to make your phone smarter and life easier. Some examples are:

Automatically turning dark mode on at night and off in the morning
Reading notifications aloud so you never drain your battery by turning on the screen
Send an automated SMS to your partner when you leave the office in the evening

There are countless more tasks that can be created, limited only by your imagination.

These tasks (known as Macros) are started when certain events occur, these events are called 'Triggers'. MacroDroid supports a wide range of triggers, a few examples are:

SMS (text) sent or received
Entering or leaving a location
Time of Day
A notification with specific text is received

Each macro can be configured with one or more 'Actions'. These actions are the useful work that the macro will perform when it is run. There are over 100 different actions to choose from, a few examples are:

Finally, a macro may also include 'Constraints'. Constraints are optional conditions that have to be met (the condition must be true) before a macro will run. Constraints may also be placed directly on triggers or actions to apply the constraint to only that individual trigger/action.

MacroDroid comes with many ways to backup your progress, the first method is the import/export method which is under the orange tile from the home screen of MacroDroid, it allows you to share your macros with other devices or any app that shows in your share menu.

Automatic backups can be found by pressing the red tile from the home screen of MacroDroid. There are two methods here, local and cloud. Local backups are mainly useful for restoring recent configurations if you have made a mistake such as inadvertently deleting a macro or otherwise damaging your configuration. Cloud backups are provided for Pro users and are an opt in so that your privacy is protected. Your backups will be store securely in MacroDroid's backend and only accessible to you. A final option to backup your macros is to use the "Export macros" action within MacroDroid's macro creator so you can automate backups, using whatever trigger you like (for example a regular interval to backup every 24 hours)

MacroDroid comes with a Plugin store, this is where you can find other apps that are compatible with MacroDroid, so that you can further expand functionality. These plugins can act as triggers and as actions.

While working with MacroDroid on a phone consider using a USB connection to your PC and a Screen-Copy program like "scrcpy.exe" (https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/windows.md). This can mirror the phone screen to a window on the PC. The advantage is that typing and pointing can be done by Mouse and Keyboard making input quicker and easier.

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-TODO - A general but detailed description of how MacroDroid works
+MacroDroid is an Android application, which automates repetitive tasks to save time, battery and effort needed to make your phone smarter and life easier. Some examples are:
-MacroDroid is an Android application, which automates repetitive tasks t save time, battery and effort needed to make your phone smarter. Some examples are:
+* Automatically turning dark mode on at night and off in the morning
+* Reading notifications aloud so you never drain your battery by turning on the screen
+* Send an automated SMS to your partner when you leave the office in the evening
-Turning Dark mode on at night and off in the morning
+There are countless more tasks that can be created, limited only by your imagination.
-Reading notifications so you never drain your battery by turning on the screen
-There are hundreds more tasks that can be done.
-These tasks are started when certain conditions are met, these conditions are called 'Triggers'
+These tasks (known as Macros) are started when certain events occur, these events are called '[[Triggers]]'. MacroDroid supports a wide range of triggers, a few examples are:
-Triggers can be a multitude of things for example:
+* SMS (text) [[Trigger: SMS Sent|sent]] or [[Trigger: SMS Received|received]]
-SMS (text) sent or received, entering or leaving a location or SIM card changed. Again this is not a full list, there are absolutely loads of triggers.
+* [[Trigger: Location Trigger|Entering or leaving a location]]
+* [[Trigger: Day/Time Trigger|Time of Day]]
+*[[Trigger: Notification|A notification with specific text is received]]
-There are also constraints, which are conditions that have to be met before the actions run, even if they have been triggered. Constraints can be applied to individual actions to skip them if needed.
+Each macro can be configured with one or more '[[Actions]]'. These actions are the useful work that the macro will perform when it is run. There are over 100 different actions to choose from, a few examples are:
+* [[Action: Volume Change|Change the volume of an audio stream]]
+* [[Action: Send SMS|Send an SMS message]]
+* [[Action: Brightness|Set the screen brightness]]
+* [[Action: Speak Text|Speak Text]]
+* [[Action: Record Microphone|Record the microphone]]
+Finally, a macro may also include '[[Constraints]]'. Constraints are optional conditions that have to be met (the condition must be true) before a macro will run. Constraints may also be placed directly on triggers or actions to apply the constraint to only that individual trigger/action.
 MacroDroid comes with many ways to backup your progress, the first method is the import/export method which is under the orange tile from the home screen of MacroDroid, it allows you to share your macros with other devices or any app that shows in your share menu.
-Also, auto backup which can be found by pressing the red tile from the home screen of MacroDroid. There are two methods here, local and cloud. Cloud is an opt in so that your privacy is protected. You can turn off both if you wish as there is another method:
+Automatic backups can be found by pressing the red tile from the home screen of MacroDroid. There are two methods here, local and cloud. Local backups are mainly useful for restoring recent configurations if you have made a mistake such as inadvertently deleting a macro or otherwise damaging your configuration. Cloud backups are provided for Pro users and are an opt in so that your privacy is protected. Your backups will be store securely in MacroDroid's backend and only accessible to you. A final option to backup your macros is to use the "Export macros" action within MacroDroid's macro creator so you can automate backups, using whatever trigger you like (for example a regular interval to backup every 24 hours)
-The export macros action within MacroDroid's macro creator so you can automate backups.
 MacroDroid comes with a Plugin store, this is where you can find other apps that are compatible with MacroDroid, so that you can further expand functionality. These plugins can act as triggers and as actions.
+While working with MacroDroid on a phone consider using a USB connection to your PC and a Screen-Copy program like "scrcpy.exe" (https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/windows.md). This can
+mirror the phone screen to a window on the PC. The advantage is that typing and pointing can be done by Mouse and Keyboard making input quicker and easier.