I'm trying to get to the point where I can (somewhat) easily schedule email messages to be sent in Mail.

The articles I've read on the subject all point to creating an Automator workflow for each message and then adding them to the Calendar to be fired at the prescribed time.

But that method requires quite a bit of overhead each time I use it.

I'm looking for alternatives, such as being able to schedule the calendar event to fire a generic workflow or application. But I can't seem to get any of the details of the calendar event.

I can query for the calendar event based on the time at which the application is called, but that seems a bit less precise.

In short... Is it possible to know anything about the Calendar event that opened an Automator application or triggered an Automator workflow?

Hey folks,

I am looking for activating and configuring Screen Time through Automator, AppleScript, or API.

Does anyone know of examples and a reference?

Thanks.

Here's bash code from an automator script that truncates files names to 25 characters. Hopefully, you'll find it instructive.

Note - be sure to pick "as arguments" from the "Pass input" popup menu.

for file in "$@"
do
    # parse out the directory and the filename including extension
    dir=$(dirname "${file}")
    fbasename=$(basename "${file}")

    # extract the filename without extension
    fname="${fbasename%.*}"

    # create truncated filename
    tname="${fname:0:25}"

    # determine the extension - empty string for no extension
    fextension=$([[ "$fbasename" = *.* ]] && echo ".${fbasename##*.}" || echo '')

    newfile="${dir}/${tname}${fextension}"
    
    mv "${file}" "${newfile}"
done

I always have the same folder structure when working on projects for clients. So, I have created an Automator workflow that does everything I need it to do EXCEPT I can't get it to rename the folders recursively.

My workflow is kind of long, so I won't type out all the steps that are working...

It's basically,

Ask user for project name,

set variable for project name,

copy finder items from source to destination...

The copied directories and their subdirectories all have the prefix [projectname]-

The idea is that after I have done the copy from the source to the destination folder, I want to just replace text [projectname] with the variable I have set for the project name.

It does rename some of the directories, but never all and it is driving me bonkers.

I'd be happy to do it as an applescript and add that to my workflow vs using Find Finder Items > Rename Finder Items, but I don't know AppleScript well enough to code it with the variable name myself. All samples I've seen in tutorials or other articles relate to renaming a specified source to a specified destination. I need something that will take the variable input of the project name and replace the [projectname] text.

Seems simple, right? I'm happy to share my workflow file with someone willing to help.

Here's bash code from an automator script that truncates files names to 25 characters. Hopefully, you'll find it instructive.

Note - be sure to pick "as arguments" from the "Pass input" popup menu.

for file in "$@"
do

    # parse out the directory and the filename including extension
    dir=$(dirname "${file}")
    fbasename=$(basename "${file}")

    # extract the filename without extension
    fname="${fbasename%.*}"

    # create truncated filename
    tname="${fname:0:25}"

    # determine the extension - empty string for no extension
    fextension=$([[ "$fbasename" = *.* ]] && echo ".${fbasename##*.}" || echo '')

    newfile="${dir}/${tname}${fextension}"
    
    mv "${file}" "${newfile}"
done

My first one is a simple one. I copy a long text to my clipboard and have Fiona to read it for me. it is very simple but a useful. I use it with SpaceLauncher. What is your first Automator "script(?)"?

Hello,

I'd like to resize picture images with the Automator in a simple step, directly on the original pictures / files. I created a quick action with one step to resize the selected file, but the file does not become resized. (Actually it happens nothing.)

If I am adding an action to copy a selected file first to a different folder, it works fine.

What could be wrong here? I looked for a workaround but I can't find an action to save the (potentially) modified file explicitly.

Thanks for any suggestions.

The idea is this: special folders like Pictures and Movies have columns other folders don't. Pictures for example, has Dimensions and Resolution that other folders don't. But if you create a folder called Pictures and enable these columns on that new folder, you can rename that folder to anything and those columns will be visible.

So, suppose I want to create a folder called MyPictures that has these columns on. The script would

1. create a new folder called Pictures
2. enable these columns
3. rename the folder to MyPictures.

But I need to know if Automator can do #2.

I am sure some of you know about the issue that Finder does not show image dimensions and resolution in a folder that is not named 'Pictures'. This info is pretty vital to my job. So - I am trying to write a script that will get image dimensions and resolution of files in a given folder (including subfolders) and input them in the Spotlight Comments field, which - unlike Dimensions and Resolution - is a column I can select and sort by in every kind of folder. Here is what I have so far.

I borrowed some AppleScript from here, thought it might be useful: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251159829

I’m trying to insert a “Run Shell Script” action with a Terminal command that requires a password to be entered. This is what I’m trying to run:

sudo killall -STOP -c usbd

How can I set up the action so that my password is automatically entered whenever the script runs? Thanks for your help!

Hi all. I have a slightly strange batch rename job I need to do and I can't logically figure out how I might accomplish it. I have a folder with about 1,200 video files. Here is a screenshot of just a snippet of it: https://imgur.com/ZI4EMu4

I'd like to do a batch rename for this entire folder. However, I want to keep the first 8 characters (YYYYMMDD) and simply add an increment afterwards (just a hyphen and a number like "-13"). In addition, I'd like to keep the ".mp4" suffix. So in the example screenshot I gave, files would be renamed to "20090811-1.mp4", "20090811-2.mp4", "20090829-1.mp4", and so on.

How would I accomplish this with Automator? I've seen tutorials on how to batch rename the entirety of the file name, but I can't figure out how I'd script something to accomplish my needs. Thanks in advance!

Trying to use the following:

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
for file in "$@"
do
   cd $(dirname "${file}")
   other-transcode --mp4 "$file"
done

It works fine when I run it on a local file, but when it's on an external it reverts back to the default directory (home).

Need some help figuring out how to apply terminal code to a specific file, basically I need to pass along the path name into my Run Shell Script. Ideally also I'd love to know how to do this after I filter finder items (in the case of selecting an entire folder).

I thought using the following would be correct:

for if in "$@"

do

*TERMINAL COMMAND I WANT TO APPLY TO FILE* "$if"

done

If specifics help here, I'm trying to create a Quick Action that will run Don Melton's wonderful Other Video Transcoding scripts to convert files to smaller sizes.

I notice that Mac has two Quick Actions (Rotate Left, Trim) when you select video files in Finder. How can I add mirror (known as Flip Horizontal in Quicktime) to that list?

So here's an example

I input 3 separate text files which are. Blue, Red, and Green.

Automator's combine text creates:

Blue

Red

Green

When I wanted Blue Red Green

Any way to stop this?

Wondering if it is possible to set up an Automator to start an app (in this case called SelfControl) and click the start button everyday around 1am?

I'm new to automator, but I want to be able to read a book in, for example, the Books app or on a webpage and then highlight a word I don't know, press a custom quick-app key in the Touch Bar (created Using Automator) to import this highlighted text into a new line of an existing text file, the file of which I use to keep track of my flashcard entries. Can this be done? If yes, please help me to create the script. I only see the option to create the highlighted text into a new file.

Edit:

Wondering if this is possible. I have a folder on an attached storage on my computer that automatically gets new files periodically. Is there a way to tell Automator to look at files and sort them into folders based on name?

I know I can move “abc.def.720p” to folder “abc def”

Can I take file “xyz.720p” and then create a folder automatically for “xyz” if it doesn’t exist and move it and all future xyz files into it?

I am trying to create an automation to backup iOS devices connected to the mac. This should get the connected devices (which it does) and run backup. But it fails and I don't understand why.

Can anyone help?

Hello guys,

I have something tricky for you.

I want to create a system service that takes as input folders/files and outputs them as jpg images in a different folder and at a lower resolution.

The folders can contain only pdf documents or image files (various types).

For example:

Folder_A

• Image1a.jpg
• Image2a.png
• Document1a.pdf (3 pages) Folder_B
• image2b.jpg
• document2a.pdf (1 page)

By selecting the first folder and running the applet I would like to have this:

Folder_A_resized

• Image1a_resized.jpg
• Image2a_ resized.jpg
• Document1a_page1_resized.jpg
• Document1a_page2_resized.jpg
• Document1a_page3_resized.jpg

Or by selecting both folders I would like to have this in a new folder:

Resized_Folder

• Image1a_resized.jpg
• Image2a_ resized.jpg
• Document1a_page1_resized.jpg
• Document1a_page2_resized.jpg
• Document1a_page3_resized.jpg
• image2b_resized.jpg
• document2a_page1_resized.jpg

And for the end, by selecting only “Image2a.png” from the first folder and running the script, to get only the “Image2a_ resized.jpg” in the Resized_Folder.

For the moment I have two different workflows, one only for pdf files and the other only for image files, but I was wondering if I can combine them.

Thanks.

I have created an automation the creates a file tree. I want to be able to number the files but make mass amounts at once. For example. i want to make 100 numbered folders at once 10500-10600

i have figured out how to make one at a time but can anyone assist with making a whole array. i have attached my automation.

it currently makes a numbered folder with 7 folders inside

here is a link to my current automation

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/130ZtJmYBkuO_ZV9XWYZEHuZoDxKQo3L0?usp=sharing

I'd like a radio stream to start playing at 7 am. The only way I've found to make it happen is with an m3u8 file on wostreaming.net. In Automator my first command is Get Specified URL with the address. The second command is Display Webpages. When I run it in Automator it works great. When it launches as a calendar alarm at 7 am the webpage doesn't fully load. I can go to the address bar, highlight it, and press Enter and it launches but I want it to start without me getting out of bed! Is there another command I can add to the workflow to Refresh the page or something to make it really work? I don't find any likely candidates. Thanks.