With every Mac sold comes a powerful little app called Automator. By using a drag-and-drop user interface, this under-appreciated software allows anyone to quickly automate monotonous tasks, and get work done in a snap. Today, I want to show off some of my favorite Automator workflows that highlight exactly how powerful this tool is.
Keep in mind, creating a new workflow is a lot like solving a puzzle, so the process is actually fun for some of us. And since you can easily weave in more complexity as your skills progress, Automator is actually a fantastic introduction to the logic and structure that makes full-fledged programming possible. If that sounds appealing, let’s jump in, and explore five ways Automator can make your life a little bit easier.
Your Mac comes with lots of ways to schedule tasks, but not all of it's ready to go out of the box. Beyond automated maintenance, OS X has a lot going for it, but you have to put in a bit of elbow grease to get everything working how you want it and on your schedule. The next time that the Mac is shut down and restarted, the volume of the start up chime from the headphones will be determined by the setting that you chose in System Preferences Sound The same principle is used for any external speakers that have been attached to the Mac via the audio-out port, whether that is Thunderbolt Display speakers. Training Video (52m) There’s more to Automator than the drag-and-drop creation of “automation recipes.” The following video from the CMD-D Conference shows what workflow variables, contextual system integration, and direct access to all of the automation power of the OS can do for you.
Rotating images
One of the most frustrating parts of digital photography is actually managing your photos. And if you’re using a camera without a gyroscope, you might end up with hundreds of photos that are oriented in the wrong direction. You could certainly go through them all and manually rotate them, but this process is actually incredibly easy to automate.
Start by adding the “Ask for Finder Items” action, and tick the “Allow Multiple Selections” checkbox. If you want to leave the original versions untouched, you can add the “Copy Finder items” action. Now, add the “Rotate Images” action to the end. Choose which direction you want to rotate, and then save the workflow. If you’re not consistent in which direction you rotate your camera, you may want to save two versions — one for left rotations, and one for right.
Bulk file renaming
If you’re dealing with files from multiple different sources, the filenames are bound to be completely incomprehensible. Normally, that’s not a big deal, but some programs require any input to be named meticulously. Specifically, I run into this issue when I’m running DNA results through certain third-party tools. Instead of manually going through all of the files and renaming them, let your Mac do the heavy lifting for you.
Add the “Ask for Finder Items” action, toggle on the “Allow Multiple Selections” checkbox, and decide if you want to make copies or simply rename the original files. If you want to make copies, add the “Copy Finder Items” action as well. Now, add the “Rename Finder Items” action to the end, and use the configuration menu to customize the naming scheme as you see fit. I tend to use “Make Sequential,” but your needs may vary.
Text-to-speech
OS X‘s built-in text-to-speech engine is incredibly useful for various tasks, and Automator allows you to quickly generate audio from a text source, and save that out to your disk as an AIFF file. Whether you need a voice sample for your next dubstep track or you’re simply interested in hearing essays read to you while you’re driving, this method is extremely easy to implement.
While there are numerous ways to get text into this workflow, I’ve found the easiest way is to paste your text into a TextEdit window, and then add the “Get Contents of TextEdit Document” action. From there, add the “Text to Audio File” action, pick which voice you want to use, and give the file a name.
Panic button
If you’re living or working around other people, you’ll probably need to leave your Mac unattended eventually. As someone who’s had to deal with countless mischievous friends and co-workers, your best bet is to lock down your system whenever you’re not in front of it. And if you’re worried about inadvertently disturbing others while you’re away, it’s probably wise to close all of your apps, and mute your system as well. Thankfully, you can simplify this entire process down to a single click.
Start off with the “Quit All Applications” action. If you don’t want to deal with additional prompts, make sure you turn off the “Ask to save changes” checkbox. However, this has the potential to lose unsaved data, so be very careful. Next, add the “Set Computer Volume” action, and turn down “Output volume” and “Alert volume” to prevent your Mac from making noises. Finally, add the “Start Screen Saver” action. And provided that you’ve configured your Mac to require a password immediately upon sleep or initiation of the screen saver (System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General), your Mac will be locked with a single click.
Run scripts
Without a doubt, the most powerful aspect of Automator is the ability to run AppleScript, JavaScript, and shell scripts in the workflow. The scripts can be as elaborate as you want them to be, and it enables functionality that doesn’t exist in the default Automator actions.
To run scripts in your workflow, simply add the “Run JavaScript,” “Run AppleScript,” or “Run Shell scripts” actions into the mix. The options are nigh-on limitless, but here’s an example that I use in my workflows:
That script will resize the Safari window automatically, and that comes in extremely handy when I’m testing out new website layouts.
Automate your life
Once you start creating workflows, it’s easy to lose yourself while attempting to optimize every interaction. Much of the tedious work associated with your career and hobbies can be lifted off your shoulders with a little time spent with Automator, but you can just as easily waste hours trying to shave off a few minutes here and there. Take advantage of the power of automation, but remember that it’s not a perfect fit for every situation.
If you’re interested in finding out even more about Automator, check out Sal Soghoian’s Automator.us. He’s the man behind Automator, and he quite literally wrote the book on AppleScript.
I’ve been on an Automator kick lately. Automator’s been a standard part of Mac OSX for a few generations now, and it’s been a part of my workflow for awhile, too. I’m just now starting to go to it first when I’m working on a project and realize I have repetitive tasks.
For those of you unaware, Automator resides in your applications folder and it’s basically a program that will perform automatic tasks that you describe, in the order that you describe it. If you find yourself performing a redundant task on the computer: renaming files, converting files, resizing images, saving PDFs to specific folders, moving media, backing up files, etc. – why not make those tasks automatic? Why not allow the computer to work for you?
I could delve into a whole entire lesson and series on Automator (and I might!), but for today, I just want to showcase a couple of different workflows I’ve designed to increase my productivity lately, to give you a glimpse of what Automator can do.
1) Print Plug-in
One of my favorite uses of Automator is to develop an automatic workflow from the Print menu in Mac OSX. Every time we go to File < Print, a PDF button sits in the bottom-left corner of the screen, waiting for us to use it instead of actually [gasp] using ink and paper. You could use the Save As PDF… option, rename the file, choose a destination, and then save – but for repetitive items such as receipts, bank statements, transfer confirmations, etc…why not automate those tasks?
2) Service
Automator Mac Download
Services are becoming very handy for me. Another somewhat hidden feature of Mac OSX that’s been around for awhile, yet I find not many people take advantage its functionality. You can access services anytime you highlight text or a file from the application’s menu that you’re in (ie: Safari < Services), or from the contextual (right-click) menu. Using Automator’s powerful workflow capabilities, I can perform tasks on a given file with one click.
I’m a big music/media fan, with a very large (23,000+ song, 450+ movie, 300+ TV Show) iTunes library. Because of the size of it all, I can’t host the entire library on my 250gb laptop, so I end up storing all of the music locally and then reference the larger video files from networked storage (Contact me with questions! Post on that topic soon.). I also acquire music in a variety of ways: directly through iTunes, from CDs, eMusic.com, Amazon.com, etc. How do I get all of these music files organized appropriately into iTunes? I can’t just drag and drop. Because my iTunes is set up as a referenced library, anything I drag and drop stays in its current location and, if I were to delete those files, iTunes would give me the obnoxious I-don’t-know-where-the-original-file-is-what-did-you-do-with-it exclamation mark. So, that’s where Automator and iTunes’ built in watch folder (found in User < Music < iTunes < iTunes Music < Automatically Add to iTunes) come to the rescue.
3) Application
We know what Applications are, but did you know that you could make your own? Yup, Automator will allow you to do that. Basically, an Application that you make in automator can either be a self-standing Application or, if it resides on your dock, can perform actions to files that are dropped on top of it. For my example, I need to do a little bit of explanation.
Most of you know I attend church at New Life Church in Raymond, NH. I am also a member and co-leader of the worship team there, currently responsible for a variety of tasks including making and managing chord charts, selecting new music, designing keynote slides and various media, scheduling, etc. I set up a separate User Account on my laptop to dedicate to when I’m working with the church’s media, as I didn’t want that to overlap with my own personal home collection. Sometimes, however, I stumble across a song, picture, video, etc. that I know I would like to use on the Worship Team account when I’m in my regular User. How do I get it over there? Well, I could email items to myself and check it (old school and laborious). I could use a flash drive or online storage (I do, but it’s slow – plus I have a separate DropBox account for the Church). I could use Mac OSX’s built-in Drop Box folder through the Finder (but it’s kind of an obnoxious file path to get there). So – which option works best for my scenario?
I ended up using the last option – Mac OSX’s built-in Drop Box folder (Macintosh HD < User < Public < Drop Box). Any files placed in there are immediately owned and accessible from the destination user’s Public folder. I created an Automator Service for that. But…the last step that I found to be slightly annoying was that when I logged into the Worship Team user account, I had to go through a few steps to access those files. I created an Automator Application for my workaround, setting the resulting application as a Login Item for the Worship Team user.
Conclusion
So, certainly a variety of ways to use Automator to have the computer work for you. Visit Mac OSX Automation or Automator US for more ideas and examples. Let me know in the comments what you use Automator for!
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