TVDL Works on iOS 27: What Changed in Shortcuts, and What Did Not

iOS 27 went out to everyone on Monday, September 14, 2026, after a beta that started on June 8 and a release candidate on September 9. I tested TVDL on it. Everything works. There is nothing for you to install and nothing for you to change.

I have made TVDL since 2018, so I run this check for every major iOS release. Nothing broke this time.

The short version

• TVDL 4.1, the free shortcut, and TVDL Pro 5.1 both run on iOS 27 unchanged.
• There is no new version to download. The shortcut already on your phone is the one that works.
• The share sheet flow is the same, and saving to Photos is the same.
• Every iPhone that ran iOS 26 runs iOS 27: an A13 chip or newer, which means iPhone 11 and later. No models were dropped.
• TVDL needs iOS 13 or later, iPadOS 13 or later, or macOS 12 or later. If you are staying on an older version, you are still covered.

What is new in Shortcuts on iOS 27

Almost every Shortcuts change in iOS 27 is about writing shortcuts rather than running them.

Tap New Shortcut now and you land on a Describe a Shortcut screen. You type what you want in plain language, and Apple Intelligence assembles the actions for you. A Describe a change step lets you refine the result without starting over. The manual editor is still there underneath, so nothing you already know has been taken away.

The rest of the changes:

• Automations are no longer a separate tab. Triggers now sit alongside the rest of the actions. New ones include receiving a notification, taking a screenshot, connecting a keyboard, and starting an Apple Watch workout.
• Around 22 new actions, covering group messaging in Messages, photo management, organizing Reminders, and hearing aid controls.
• Shortcuts can store their own data now, such as lists and tallies, inside the shortcut itself.
• The Use Model action gained options: on device, Cloud, and Cloud Pro, which can search the web.
• Share Sheet shortcuts work on macOS too, not only on iPhone and iPad.

None of this changes how you use TVDL. It only matters if you build your own shortcuts.

What did not change for TVDL

The parts you actually touch are untouched. You still add TVDL from an iCloud link and tap Add Shortcut. You still run it from the share sheet on any post with a video. iOS still asks once for permission to read the link and save to Photos. The Show in Share Sheet toggle is still in the same place in the shortcut info.

Apple also announced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max alongside iOS 27. The Bluesky, X, and Mastodon shortcuts work on those exactly as they do on any other iPhone.

Can "Describe a Shortcut" build a video downloader?

This is the question I expect to get most, so here is the answer before it comes up: no, not a working one.

The feature itself is good. Describing an everyday automation in a sentence and getting a real shortcut back beats hunting through an action list, and I expect a lot of people who never built a shortcut will build their first one this year.

The limit is what it has to work with. It strings together Apple's built in actions, and saving a video needs something those actions cannot get, which is the actual media URL. X, Bluesky, and Mastodon do not put that URL in the page you share. Bluesky serves HLS stream segments that have to be fetched and stitched into a single file before you have a video at all. X changes how it delivers video on a regular basis.

TVDL does that resolution on its own server and hands the shortcut a finished file. That is the part a one line description cannot produce, and it is why TVDL has needed steady maintenance since 2018.

If TVDL vanished from your share sheet after updating

This happens after most major iOS releases, not only this one. Sometimes the shortcut drops out of the share sheet. Sometimes it asks for permissions it already had. The fix takes a minute:

1. Open the Shortcuts app.
2. Tap the ... on the TVDL shortcut.
3. Open the shortcut info and confirm Show in Share Sheet is on.
4. Restart your iPhone.

If it is still missing, the troubleshooting guide has the longer version.

That is the whole update. If you do not have TVDL yet, get it free and save your first video in about two minutes. TVDL Pro adds Instagram and TikTok. And if you came here from a search about X specifically, the X video guide walks through it step by step.