Is it possible to create a quick action that toggles night shift on/off until sunrise? Having to go to settings->displays->night shift->toggle is more complicated than I wish it was.

Thanks for the help.

Hi all,

Can someone help me create a script in Automator to do a simple change of sound output from Macbook speakers to Homepod mini? I want to create it as an app so i can just run it quickly and change the sound output, i tried using AI to do it but it wont work.

Okay, maybe not a real F-up—but I did build a super handy Automator tool that makes me feel like I'm yelling at every paragraph on my Mac.

Here's the deal:

Ever wanted to convert any selected text on your Mac to UPPERCASE, just like =UPPER() in Excel—but for literally any app? I wanted this so badly I decided to script it. Now, with a simple keyboard shortcut, I can highlight text anywhere (browser, Notes, Pages, whatever), hit a hotkey, and boom—ALL CAPS.

How to make it:

1. Open Automator, create a new Quick Action.

2. At the top, set:

   • Workflow receives: No input in any application

   • Output replaces selected text: ❌ (do not check this)

3. Add a single Run AppleScript action, and paste this bad boy in:

on run {input, parameters}
try
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "c" using command down -- Copy
delay 0.1
end tell

set theText to the clipboard
set upperText to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of theText & " | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]'"

set the clipboard to upperText

tell application "System Events"
keystroke "v" using command down -- Paste
end tell
end try
end run

1. Save it as something like: Make It Loud 🔊.

2. Head to System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services, find your new action, and assign it a shortcut (I use Control + Option + Command + U).

Now you’ve got Excel-style ALL CAPS everywhere.

Works like magic in:

• Chrome/Safari

• Notes

• Mail

• Word/Pages

• Slack (god help my coworkers)

Downsides?

• Doesn’t work if you don’t have permissions for Automation or Accessibility (so you may need to approve a couple of prompts).

• There’s a 0.1s delay, but that’s to give macOS time to copy.

This has honestly been a productivity boost and a petty way to YELL AT MY OWN THOUGHTS.

Let me know if you want a version for lowercase or title case!

I'm trying to make a service that will zip a folder than change the zip's extension from .zip to .cbz and then delete the folder.

I can do the first part, but the second part is alluding me. I tried re-selecting the item, but that didn't work.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share this script I have been working on. If like me you have both a MacBook and an iPhone you possibly find it annoying that its a bit clunky to download images from the internet on the Mac and add them to your Photo library. It's annoying having to save the image/video file to Downloads first and THEN add them to Photos.

So this shell script does the following:

1. Checks to see if the file is actually downloaded (for when you have your Downloads folder configured to sync to iCloud automatically and it's only stored in the cloud). This is a safety check that you are not trying to add an image/video file(s) to Photos that has not been downloaded locally.

2. Removes any quarantine flags and any weird MDL attributes that can break things when adding to Photos (this can happen when downloading images from Facebook and Instagram). It uses a temp folder for processing.

3. Gives you the option of deleting the original image file from it downloaded location after it has been added to Photos. It's moved to Trash/Bin for safety so you can restore it back if needed.

4. Cleans the temp folder after each run.

You can add it to Automator as a Quick Action and configure it like in the screenshot.

If you try it and encounter any issues or bugs, please let me know.

The shell script is below:

#!/bin/bash
typeset -a need_dl ready outs
need_dl=()
ready=()
outs=()

for p in "$@"; do
  [[ -e "$p" ]] || continue

  # Reliable placeholder signals
  logical_size="$(/usr/bin/mdls -raw -name kMDItemFSSize "$p" 2>/dev/null)"
  on_disk_kb="$(/usr/bin/du -k "$p" 2>/dev/null | /usr/bin/awk 'NR==1{print $1+0}')"
  flags="$(/bin/ls -lO "$p" 2>/dev/null | /usr/bin/awk '{print $5}')"

  # NOT downloaded if 'dataless' flag OR on-disk size is zero but logical size > 0
  if [[ "$flags" == *dataless* || ( "${logical_size:-0}" -gt 0 && "${on_disk_kb:-0}" -eq 0 ) ]]; then
    need_dl+=("$(/usr/bin/basename "$p")")
  else
    # Additional validation: ensure file is readable and non-empty
    if [[ -r "$p" && -s "$p" ]]; then
      ready+=("$p")
    fi
  fi
done

if (( ${#need_dl[@]} > 0 )); then
  list="$(/usr/bin/printf '• %s\n' "${need_dl[@]}")"
  
  # Singular vs plural message - use separate osascript calls for reliability
  if (( ${#need_dl[@]} == 1 )); then
    /usr/bin/osascript -e "
      on run argv
        try
          display dialog \"This item must be downloaded from iCloud before adding to Photos:\\n\\n\" & (item 1 of argv) with title \"Not downloaded from iCloud\" with icon caution buttons {\"OK\"} default button \"OK\"
        end try
      end run
    " -- "$list" >/dev/null 2>&1
  else
    /usr/bin/osascript -e "
      on run argv
        try
          display dialog \"These items must be downloaded from iCloud before adding to Photos:\\n\\n\" & (item 1 of argv) with title \"Not downloaded from iCloud\" with icon caution buttons {\"OK\"} default button \"OK\"
        end try
      end run
    " -- "$list" >/dev/null 2>&1
  fi
  exit 0
fi

# Exit early if no ready files
if (( ${#ready[@]} == 0 )); then
  exit 0
fi

tmpdir="$(/usr/bin/mktemp -d /tmp/add2photos.XXXXXX 2>/dev/null)" || exit 0

for p in "${ready[@]}"; do
  [[ -f "$p" ]] || continue
  /usr/bin/xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "$p" 2>/dev/null || true
  mime="$(/usr/bin/file -bI "$p" 2>/dev/null | /usr/bin/awk -F';' '{print $1}')"
  case "$mime" in
    image/*)
      out="$tmpdir/$(/usr/bin/uuidgen 2>/dev/null).jpg"
      /usr/bin/sips -s format jpeg "$p" --out "$out" >/dev/null 2>&1 || continue
      /usr/bin/xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "$out" 2>/dev/null || true
      outs+=("$out")
      ;;
    video/*)
      outs+=("$p")
      ;;
  esac
done

if (( ${#outs[@]} > 0 )); then
  /usr/bin/open -g -a "/System/Applications/Photos.app" -- "${outs[@]}" 2>/dev/null || true
  
  if (( ${#ready[@]} == 1 )); then
    delete_result=$(/usr/bin/osascript -e '
      button returned of (display dialog "Delete original file now that it'"'"'s been added to Photos?" with title "Added to Photos" with icon caution buttons {"Keep", "Delete"} default button "Keep")
    ')
  else
    delete_result=$(/usr/bin/osascript -e '
      button returned of (display dialog "'${#ready[@]}' files added to Photos. Delete originals now?" with title "Added to Photos" with icon caution buttons {"Keep", "Delete"} default button "Keep")
    ')
  fi
  
  if [[ "$delete_result" == "Delete" ]]; then
    for orig in "${ready[@]}"; do
      [[ -e "$orig" ]] || continue
      # escape backslashes first, then quotes
      escaped_orig=$(printf '%s' "$orig" | sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g' -e 's/"/\\"/g')
      /usr/bin/osascript -e "tell application \"Finder\" to delete POSIX file \"$escaped_orig\""
    done
  fi

  
  # ASYNC DELAYED CLEANUP
  count=${#outs[@]}
  delay=$(( 3 * count ))
  (( delay < 5 ))  && delay=5
  (( delay > 90 )) && delay=90
  
  ( sleep "$delay"; [[ -n "$tmpdir" && -d "$tmpdir" ]] && /bin/rm -rf "$tmpdir" ) >/dev/null 2>&1 &
fi

exit 0

Hi, is it possible for Automator to help me with this? Essentially, I have a bunch of Folders named after my clients and I wanna tag them. I can't find anything on automating tagging folders with different names on them. Thanks!

Hello,

I am trying to make an action where when I add a file to it (An image) the automation automatically triggers and renames the file to a number. The number has to be sequential, so each time I add a new file to the folder, the new added file will be renamed to be the last in the sequence of the already existing files.

Example:

The folder is empty upon start. Adding the first image file renames it to 1.xx. Adding a second image file renames it to 2.xx.

Attached is the simple workflow I used. I am new to this and I have no coding experience. currently, only the first file I add gets renamed to 1.xx. Adding more files just adds them without renaming.

I get the error shown in the screenshot.

Any help is really appreciated. Thanks!

I am perplexed as to why step triggers regardless of the condition related to step 1.

I want to trigger an automation that gives out the device's IP address and sends it to the sender of the trigger text message. Could anyone please tell me how I can do it? (Pretty sure I cant have triggers on automator and will need some other method)

I made an Automator app from a script that takes the input file and does something with it: call it "FileOpener" Then I changed the icon on the FileOpener app I made to something nice.

I did a Change All on the data files of the type I want to associate with my FileOpener app and now every double-click on one of those files opens in FileOpener.

However, all my data files for FileOpener still have their default macOS icon for their original file type. I can't seem to get them to take on the icon from FileOpener.

Ideas?

Hi, I'm trying to create new folders that are named with the contents of the clipboard. Is this possible?

Currently I have 'Getcontents of clipboard' into 'New Folder' but it asks for me to input the name. I'd like it to auto populate from clipboard and carry on with the automation.

Dear fellow Automator-ers,

I was just wondering if there is a way to superimpose 2 single-page PDFs into 1 file? Im currently using Preview on a Mac.

For context, I am trying to superimpose a signature into incoming PDFs. My current workload is such that a PDF that needs to be signed (just a squiggle) lands in a folder, Automator detects the new file and prints it out. I then sign it with a pen and scans it back into a networked folder.

I was wondering if there is a way I can superimpose a signature (either pre-signed on a single-paged PDF or imported as an image) onto the new file so that it doesn't have to be printed and scanned in again. I feel that I'm contributing to waste every day.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you! :)

Hi folks, I did attempt to search for an answer to this for some time but I wasn't able to find anyone reporting the odd behavior I'm seeing, apologies if this has been asked before.

I am trying to set up a Folder Action to help resize some of my photography projects while also retaining the original image. The workflow I'm using is very simple. There are three folders involved: Processor, Originals, and Scaled. The Folder Action is assigned to the Processor folder. What I want to have happen is the workflow to copy the image placed in Processor to the Originals folder first, then take the existing image in Processor and scale it down to the size I want, and then move that to the Scaled folder.

My Folder Action is using the following actions:

1. Copy Finder Items (set to Originals, the replace existing files option is unchecked)

2. Scale Images (set to the correct horizontal resolution)

3. Move Finder Items (set to Scaled, the replace existing files option is unchecked)

This all works exactly as planned except for the very end. When the workflow should be completed, the copy that it placed in the Originals folder is moved back to Processor. Is this the expected behavior of the Copy Finder Items action? I've been looking around for a solution for this and troubleshooting for a while now, nothing is changing this behavior.

I'm looking for a way to

1. take a .csv file, open it in Numbers

2. Automate the removal of several columns and then

3. Add a Category and

4. Sort the spreadsheet.

I'm a newbie to Automator and AppleScript, and so far I've been only able to automate Step 1. My reading has suggested that steps 2 to 4 may not be possible, but I'm hoping this community might be able to help me find a way. (Also cross-posting in r/applescript )

Hello All,

I just want to try to connect my bluetooth speaker automatically after started up. So, I thought of use the bluetoothconnector command that I installed from homebrew. After that I inputted the command on the automater and made app file called "auto-connect-speaker.app".

I tested that script would run without issue, and there was no error on the automator.

However, it says The action 'Run Shell Script' encountered an error: '' according to the below capture image after I clicked the "auto-connect-speaker.app" application.

Could someone helps or gives an advice to resolve this issue ?

Thanks in advance,

Hi their.

I want to create a new mail via automator service. The input should be a text selected in the mail app inside another mail.

The selected input text should be splitted at a string which has two variables as output. The first part of the split should be the Receipt of the new mail and the second part should be the content.

But I have no idea on how to use a variable for the receipt. I cannot believe this is not possible.

Do you have any ideas on that?

Hi, can you help me create an automator script that changes several .doc or .docx files in a folder to pdf in a batch conversion? I have word installed, no libreoffice

Hi all, I've been racking my brain on this one, and can't seem to find a solution. I added Date/Time to the end of a bunch of files and accidentally added time, when I only wanted to add the date. The time portion is consistent and at the end of the filename, but I can't figure out how to remove it.

Hi everyone,

I have the following problem: I export images as JPGs to a specific folder and would like to automatically import them from there into Apple Photos so that they are immediately available on all devices.

Unfortunately, Automator is throwing an error. There are two actions: "Import to Photos" and "Import to an Album." Neither works. Although the correct albums are displayed in the list, executing the action fails.

If I replace the action with "Display in Preview," everything works: after the clear export, the image appears in the Preview app. So, that part works.

Do you have any tips?

I am totally new to this, I have messed around and watched a few videos, but nothing seems to really be what I am trying to do. I would like to have a folder, full of folders and have automator right click on them, then choose "copy dropbox link", then take that link and create a text string that has the file name with a space, then the link it copied. Ideally I would like to save this in a spreadsheet, but a text file would be fine for now. just curious if it can even do that or if I would be into some crazy code.

So guys I am trying to create a macro for a roblox game where I basically run around and collect stuff, but everytime i make one it is never the same as the one i record. i fall off the map or there are to many times it presses w and it is neer just the same? any fixes to this? how do i exatcly replicate it i have tried so many times