After a decade of Swift observations, the knowledge of the class of short GRBs (the events with a duration of the gamma-ray emission < 2 s) experienced an impressive boost. The discovery of short GRB afterglows in 2005, provided the first insight into their energy scale, environments and host galaxies. The lack of detection of associated supernovae proved that their progenitors are not massive stars. The increasing evidence for compact object binary progenitors makes short GRBs one of the most promising sources of gravitational waves (GW) for the Advanced LIGO/Virgo experiments. I'll present a review of the observational properties of short GRBs and show how the study of these properties, together with the huge effort for the electromagnetic follow-up of GW triggers, can provide a tool to unveil their elusive progenitors.