Everything you can automate with Google on IFTTT

Google is probably already running your life a little. Your calendar, your files, your photos, your to-do list, maybe your presentations too. The problem isn't that these tools don't work well on their own. It's that they all live in separate tabs, and none of them talk to each other unless you make them.

That's where IFTTT comes in. It connects Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Photos, Contacts, Tasks, Assistant, Gmail, and Wifi to each other and to over 1,000 other apps and devices, so the information you're already creating in one place actually shows up where you need it, instead of staying stuck where you typed it.

Google Calendar

Your calendar only knows what you tell it, and most of what it should know, it never gets told. A weather forecast that would've changed your outfit. A task you added somewhere else that never made it onto today. A meeting that starts in five minutes while your phone rings at full volume.

That gap is closable. Google Calendar can stay in sync with your other calendars, your notifications, and your phone's settings, so the small stuff gets handled before you even notice it needed handling.

Google Drive

Drive is only useful as a backup if things actually end up in it, and "I'll upload that later" is where most files go to disappear. The fix isn't a better habit. It's not needing one.

Your camera roll, your other cloud storage, your screenshots, all of it can move into Google Drive the moment it shows up. Once it's set up, "backing up" stops being something you do and starts being something that's just already done.

Google Photos

Right now it works as a destination: it can pull photos and videos in from wherever they're currently scattered, though it can't yet trigger anything on its own. Still, "wherever they're currently scattered" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because that's most people's actual photo problem.

If your memories are split across a handful of apps and two different phones, all of it can pour into one Google Photos library without you exporting a single file by hand.

Google Docs

A good idea at 11pm turns into a blank tab by morning if nothing catches it in between. Notes scattered across apps, meeting recaps nobody writes up, research that lives in someone's head until it doesn't.

Google Docs can catch it instead. A new document can appear the moment something happens elsewhere, or get added to one that already exists, so you end up with a running log instead of forty scattered files named "Untitled" and "Untitled (2)."

Google Sheets

A spreadsheet is only as useful as what actually makes it into the rows, and most of what's worth tracking, purchases, workouts, hours, completed tasks, never gets logged because logging it is its own chore.

Google Sheets can fill in the rows for you. A new one can appear the moment something happens elsewhere, so the spreadsheet builds itself instead of waiting on you to update it.

Google Slides

A deck used to mean an hour of copying, formatting, and hunting down the right image before anyone even saw a first draft.

Google Slides can build itself instead. A fresh presentation can spin up from a template, get new slides, swap in new text or images, all triggered by something happening somewhere else in your stack, so the deck is already waiting by the time you sit down to review it.

Google Contacts

Every contact you save on your phone stays on your phone unless something moves it somewhere else, which means the second you switch devices, half your contacts came from memory and vibes.

Google Contacts can be the single copy that everything else feeds into, so a new contact on your iPhone shows up there automatically, no manual re-entry required.

Google Tasks

A task list only works if it's the one you actually check, and most people are juggling three: one at work, one on their phone, and one that's really just a pile of Slack messages they meant to get back to.

Google Tasks can be the one everything else reports back to. Items can land on it automatically, and completed ones can trigger something else, so checking a task off once is enough.

Google Assistant

Most smart home setups still need a phone in hand: open the app, find the light, tap the toggle. The whole point of a voice assistant was to skip that.

Google Assistant's whole job is turning a sentence into an action. Say "Hey Google, activate [scene name]" and whatever's wired up to it fires off, whether that's a garage door, a light, or a playlist. Your hands stay wherever they already are.

Gmail

Most automations end with a notification, but sometimes what you actually want is an email: something with more room, something that shows up in an inbox you already check every day.

Gmail can send that message for you, whether it's a summary of what changed, a shared file, or a recap of an event you just responded to. Twenty recipients at a time, no forwarding required.

Google Wifi

A home network doesn't announce when something changes. A kid's phone shows up, a work call starts, a guest connects, and the router never tells anyone.

Google Wifi can. It can prioritize a device the moment it connects, or send you a notification so you actually know who's on the network and when.

The bottom line

None of these Google tools were built to talk to each other, which is exactly why IFTTT exists. Pick the one service you use most, connect it, and let the rest follow once you see how little effort it actually takes.

Start a free trial of IFTTT Pro and see what your Google stack can do when it's actually connected.