iPhone charging automation: auto-turn Wi‑Fi, Mobile Data & Bluetooth OFF when charging — restore when unplugged

Use the Shortcuts app → Automation to create two Personal Automations: When Charger Is Connected (turn Wi‑Fi OFF, Bluetooth OFF, set Brightness to 20%, disable Mobile Data if supported) and When Charger Is Disconnected (restore your normal settings). This guide gives a simple, reliable method (restore to a chosen “normal” preset) plus an advanced method (capture current states and restore them), with screenshot captions and blog-ready copy.

What you’ll get from this guide

• A ready-for-blog, step-by-step walkthrough to: auto-disable Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, mobile data (where possible) and reduce brightness to 20% whenever your iPhone starts charging and restore settings when you unplug.

• Two options: Simple (recommended — reliable) and Advanced (best-effort — attempts to remember exact previous states).

• Screenshot checklist, image captions, ALT text, and copy you can paste into your blog.

Requirements & important notes

• iPhone with the Shortcuts app (built-in on modern iOS). Keep iOS up-to-date — newer iOS versions (iOS 17+) expose more network actions in Shortcuts.

• Some shortcut actions vary by iOS version and carrier. Toggling Cellular/Mobile Data from a Shortcut may not be available on every device or iOS version. If the "Set Cellular Data" action is missing, the guide shows fallbacks.

• Some automations can run automatically (no prompt); others may ask you to confirm the first time. The guide shows how to disable the confirmation when possible.

Quick plan (Simple/reliable approach)

1. Create a Personal Automation: Charger → Is Connected → actions: Set Wi‑Fi Off, Set Bluetooth Off, Set Brightness 20% (optional: Set Cellular Data Off if available). Disable Ask Before Running where possible.

2. Create a second Personal Automation: Charger → Is Disconnected → actions: Set Wi‑Fi On, Set Bluetooth On, Set Brightness to your normal brightness (e.g., 100%), Set Cellular Data On (if available). Disable Ask Before Running.

This approach restores a known "normal" configuration rather than trying to remember the exact prior state. It's simpler and more reliable.

Option A — Simple tutorial (recommended for most users)

Step 1 — Open Shortcuts → Automation

1. Open the Shortcuts app.

2. Tap Automation (bottom tab).

3. Tap + (top right) or Create Personal Automation.

Screenshot to capture: Shortcuts app main screen with the Automation tab highlighted. Caption: Shortcuts → Automation.

Step 2 — Create the "Charging — Connected" automation

1. Scroll and tap Charger.

2. Select Is Connected and tap Next.

3. Tap Add Action.

4. Search for Set Wi‑Fi → tap it → set to Off.

5. Tap + (add another action) → search Set Bluetooth → set to Off.

6. Add Set Brightness action → drag or set value to 20%.

7. (Optional) Add Set Cellular Data → set to Off — if you see this action. If not available, skip and see fallbacks below.

8. Tap Next. Turn Ask Before Running Off if the toggle is available (this allows fully automatic execution). Confirm Don’t Ask when prompted.

9. Tap Done.

Screenshot to capture: The automation editor showing the actions stacked: Set Wi‑Fi Off; Set Bluetooth Off; Set Brightness 20%. Caption: Actions for "Charging (Connected)" automation.

Step 3 — Create the "Charging — Disconnected" automation

1. Automation → + → Charger → choose Is Disconnected → Next.

2. Add actions to restore your normal state. Example (choose values you want as default):

   • Set Wi‑Fi → On

   • Set Bluetooth → On

   • Set Brightness → 100% (or whatever you prefer)

   • Set Cellular Data → On (if available)

3. Turn Ask Before Running Off if the toggle is available.

4. Tap Done.

Screenshot to capture: Automation editor for Is Disconnected with restore actions. Caption: Restore actions for "Charging (Disconnected)".

Notes & fallback for Mobile Data

• If you don’t see the Set Cellular Data action in Shortcuts, that means Shortcuts on your iPhone (or your carrier) doesn't expose a direct toggle. The fallback options are:

  1. Add an action Open App → Settings (or Open URLs to App-Prefs:root=MOBILE_DATA_SETTINGS_ID — This may not work reliably. This will open Settings → Cellular; the automation can’t toggle it for you, but it takes you right where to toggle.

  2. Accept the simple plan: rely on Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth/brightness toggles (those are supported on most iOS versions).

Option B — Advanced: remember exact prior states and restore them (best-effort)

Use this if you want the phone to come back to the exact Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth/cellular/brightness values you had before plugging in. This is more complex and can be impacted by iOS version and action availability.

Overview:

• When the charger connects, run a small Shortcut that reads current settings (brightness, network details) and saves them to a small file in iCloud (Shortcuts folder) as a JSON/dictionary.

• Then the same automation performs the "turn off" actions.

• When the charger disconnects, run a second Shortcut that reads the saved JSON and restores each value.

High-level steps to capture state

1. Create a Shortcut named Save Charging State.

2. Add actions:

   • Get Device Details → Current Brightness (store to a variable brightness).

   • Get Network Details → Network Name (SSID) (if empty, treat Wi‑Fi as off; otherwise Wi‑Fi on).

   • (Optional & limited) Try Get Network Details → Cellular fields, or use available Toggle Cellular/related actions if present.

   • Create a Dictionary with keys: wifi, bluetooth, brightness, cellular (set boolean/string values as available).

   • Save File → save dictionary as JSON to iCloud Drive/Shortcuts/charging_state.json.

3. In your Charger Is Connected automation, add Run Shortcut → Save Charging State as the first action, then your Set Wi‑Fi Off / Set Bluetooth Off / Set Brightness 20% actions.

High-level steps to restore

1. Create a Shortcut named Restore Charging State.

2. Add actions:

   • Get File → iCloud Drive/Shortcuts/charging_state.json → Get Contents of File → Get Dictionary Value to read wifi, bluetooth, brightness, cellular.

   • Use those values to run Set Wi‑Fi (On/Off), Set Bluetooth, Set Brightness, and Set Cellular Data (if available).

3. In the Charger Is Disconnected automation, Run Shortcut → Restore Charging State.

Caveats (advanced):

• Some "Get network/device" actions were unreliable in earlier iOS releases; iOS 17 and later exposed more reliable network details. You may need to tweak the shortcut or accept that not every item will be captured perfectly.

• Persisting Bluetooth state is the trickiest: Shortcuts’ ability to read the exact on/off state for Bluetooth is limited across iOS releases. If you rely on the advanced method, test thoroughly.

Troubleshooting & tips

• Automation asks for confirmation every time? Turn Ask Before Running off in the final screen of the automation. Not every automation type supports fully automatic running — Shortcuts will tell you. (If the toggle is absent, the automation will always ask.)

• Set Cellular Data missing? Use the fallback: open Settings to Cellular (via Open App → Settings) so you can toggle manually, or set a "normal" preset in the Disconnected automation and keep mobile data handling manual.

• Notifications from Shortcuts when automation runs: If you turn off Ask Before Running and the automation supports it, it can run silently. Some older iOS releases may still show notifications.

• Test step-by-step: Before relying on these automations, test them while you can monitor the result (plug in/unplug and observe Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth/brightness).