Create and manage Routines for Google Home automations

Personal Routines help you automate tasks throughout your day. For example, Assistant can play the morning news when you dismiss an alarm.

• Only you can create, edit, and start personal Routines for yourself.
• Only you can check when your personal Routine runs in My Activity.
• Get personal results, like events and reminders from your calendar.

Household Routines help automate shared home devices for everyone in your home. For example, if you've turned on presence sensing for your phone, your cameras turn off automatically when you come home, or when you manually set your home's status to Home.

• Only eligible home members with manager access can create or edit a household Routine.
• Anyone in the home, including guests, can start most household Routines.
• All home members can check when a household Routine starts. This info is in the Google Home app, in the Home history.
• They can start when a device turns on or off.
• They can't give personal results like events or reminders from a home member's calendar.
• They can start when everyone's away or when someone comes home. Learn more about Home & Away Routines.

You can start a Routine when you set a "starter." For example:

• Voice command: Start a Routine when you say a custom voice command.
• Time: Start a Routine automatically at the time and on the days you choose.
• Sunrise or sunset: Start a Routine automatically around sunrise or sunset for the days you choose.
• When an alarm is dismissed: Start a Personal Routine when you dismiss an alarm on your speaker, Smart Display, or in the Clock app.
• When a device does something: Start a Household Routine when a device does something, like when a light turns on or a motion sensor detects motion.

• Presence sensing: Start a Home & Away Routine when everyone's away, when someone comes home, or manually manage your personal home and away status. Learn more about presence sensing.
• Google Home app or Google Home for web: Start a Routine when you tap Play next to the name of the Routine in the Google Home app.

A starter might not be available if:

• You haven’t set an address for your home. To use starters based on time, sunrise and sunset, and when someone arrives or leaves a home, you must set an address for your home.
• You already selected a non-voice starter. You can only select one non-voice starter for each Routine.
• You haven’t connected a device that supports the starter. For example, to start a personal Routine when you dismiss an alarm, you must have a speaker, Smart Display, or Smart Clock that you can set an alarm on.
• You haven’t set up Home & Away Routines. To start a Routine when everyone’s away or when someone comes home, first set up Home & Away Routines.

• It affects your safety or security. For example, you can’t use “unlock” to start a Routine, but you can use “lock.”

Tip: Not all devices can be used as starters. Make sure you add the device to the home you want to create a Routine for. 

• Adjust Home Devices: Turn on, turn off, or adjust smart home devices like lights, plugs, switches, or thermostats.
• Play and control media: Play media like music, news, radio, and podcasts.
• Get info and reminders: Get info like the weather, your commute, your calendar events and reminders.
• Communicate and announce: Broadcast messages and send and read texts.
• Adjust Assistant Volume: Change the volume on your Google Assistant-enabled device.
• Adjust Phone Settings: For Android devices, adjust the phone volume, get a battery level notification, and turn Do Not Disturb on or off.
• Custom actions: Enter a command that works with Google Assistant. Find examples of commands:
  • What you can ask Google Assistant
  • Control smart lights and other devices
  • Add items to a shopping list
  • Listen to news or podcasts

Some actions might not be available if:

• The action is only available for personal Routines.
  • Actions that include personal results, like events from your calendar or your commute time.
  • Actions that might reveal personal information, like a broadcast to your home devices or reading a text message.
  • Actions that adjust phone settings, like phone volume and battery level notifications.
• You already added a media action. You can only add one media action for each Routine.

• The action affects your safety or security. For example, “unlock” isn’t an available starter, but you can set “lock” as an action.

Tip: Some actions aren’t available because two-factor authentication is required.