I am completely new to using Automator so I'm sure I've missed something very basic.
I created an action to automatically move music I download from a music site from the Downloads folder into the folder I want them in so I don't have to do it manually.
Problem is, the action moves everything that gets downloaded into the Downloads folder. What do I need to do to have only music files moved, leaving any other file type alone?
So I've been tinkering around with Automator lately and have been having some moderate success and fun coming up with different little workflows. I have now completely stumped myself on this one. I feel like it should be relatively simple but I just can't get it to work. Here's what I am looking to do. Within the iTunes Music folder I have all my artists listed alphabetically (I have iTunes set to keep my music organized). As part of my new backup plan I would like Automator create new folders based on the letters of the alphabet and then copy the artists over that belong to each letter so that the end result on my external drive looks like this
A
-Alexisonfire
-Audioslave
B
-Band of Horses
-Beastie Boys
and so on.
I've been able to do certain things in little pieces but they have all require manual intervention, i.e. filter finder items to items that start with "a" and copy to folder "a" but I have to manually enter the filter criteria and destination criteria. Is there anyway to do this without manually creating the folders and manually selecting the filter criteria and destination folder? I did find an applescript that will create the folders for me, can I add this to the workflow?
I finally ripped my music into digital format. It is a very large library so I performed the rips in four segments creating four folders of music. The highest level folders are Music1, Music2, Music3, Music4. The next layer folder is the artists name, then album name, then the actual MP3S.
How do I merge the folders? If I perform a copy the first artist name is sees that already is exists, the finder wants me to skip the copy or replace the folder that is there. I simply want to add the folder or merge it. Is there a "merge" function in OSX? I tried Carbon Copy but it will not copy or sync fils on the same disk.
I have a long list of files to unrar (I use unarchive).
View 2 Replies View RelatedUnlike Windows, this damn-ded MacOS X won't ask what to do when moving several items with the same name to a single location. In Vista and 7, it asks if you want to replace all similarly named items with a single of the items or if you want to put all of the similarly named items in the new location and append an annotation at the end of the file name. (I think Windows appends "Copy #" to duplicates) So, I'm left with, "File, File 2, File 3, file 4" in a single folder. I need an Automator action to sort this out and simply move or delete the duplicates.
The simplest action I can think is: Ask for files>get files>select files with similar filenames, neglecting the last characters if they are numerals>reference the size (with accuracy of 1 byte) of selected files>label files of the same size red>select red files>move red files to a selected folder. How can I get these sort of tools? I need a measuring action and another action that will compare file names...
I'm trying to create an Automator service for the Finder in Lion. It gives me an "error in shell script". I just created a similar script that uses "imguru" to upload images to [URL] which works great, so i'm thinking that it's must be the line with "unzip" that creates a problem.Â
Info:
MBP late 2009
I'm required to use a remote management program, by my company, every time I want to remotely login into my business computer. What happens is that it downloads this file as a launcher in order to start my session. If I need to start a session 10 times a day....well you know what happens...I end up with 10 files on my desktop, which in turn creates clutter.Â
create a basic automator script that runs every night and deletes all of these files with the addendum at the end? For exampleÂ
file.dmg
file(1).dmg
file(2).dmg
file(3).dmg
I'm attempting to use Automator to rename picture files. I select "Make Sequential" and put the name in that I want. However, once everything is completed my pictures are not in the same order they were out of the camera. I like how my camera imports the photos in the order that I took them. Now when I look through my pictures my vacation is completely out of chronological order. How do can I set Automator so that this does not happen in the future?
View 2 Replies View RelatedIs it possible to write a workflow that can select files that are contained inside a folder package?
I am trying to automate a file copy of VMWare fusion 3 files to a windows machine on the network but I cannot seem to get any of the finder actions to give me an option to get inside the package.
I'm new to the Mac world but have been successful in creating a few Automator workflows to simplify certain tasks. However, I'm stuck on the flowing; I'd like to create a workflow that searches a particular folder for items created 30 days before today's date and the delete them. I'm assuming I need to create a variable of today's date and then subtract 30 days from it and so on. Haven't been able to figure this out.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI have a collection of .htm files saved onto my Mac hard drive. I want to convert them to .jpg files--all at once. I found a Windows program that could do it, but when it converted them, it would not retain the original file names. It gave them a sequential file name, i.e. _1.jpg, _2.jpg, _3.jpg ~ _263.jpg. There is no option to retain the original file names...:/
EDIT: (i.e. marketingtable.htm > marketingtable.jpg)
So my question is, is there an Automator process that could batch convert .htm files to .jpg? Or is there an app for Mac that can batch convert .htm files to image (.jpg) files?
I usually am able to find the answer to all my questions with Google, and this time I thought I had as well with the Windows app, but it brought upon too much of a feat for me to handle.
(Also, if there's an Automator process to batch rename files using a .txt file as a reference for the new names of the files, that'd be awesome as well.
I have been using Automator to import hundreds of text files into one excel workbook using the "Import Text files to Excel Workbook" action. Automator works great for all files that are tab delimited. However I have another set of data that are output with a varying amount of spaces between each column. I cannot change the way they are output.
Automator gives me the option of choosing "space" as a delimiter, but it wont give me the option to "Treat consecutive delimiters as one" that Import within excel does. I also tried to record my actions within excel many times but it didn't work even with just one file. So what I need is a way to get these text files into one excel workbook as separate worksheets with the data separated correctly into columns.
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I have created a simple Automator action which says 'when files are added to folder Dropbox>Camera Uploads, import them to iPhoto'.The problem is that as the files are added to Dropbox one at a time (by the Dropbox servers, after they are taken on my Android phone and the Dropbox app auto-uploads them), this means there is a gap of 30-60 secs between photos, and more for a video. The end result therefore is iPhoto has each photo imported as a separate 'Event', rather than all the photos imported as one event.Â
What I'd like to say is 'wait for 5 minutes after the most recent photo/video was added, before importing all the photos/videos just added in that batch'. That way instead of iPhoto receiving each file one at a time and importing them separately, Automater will wait until the folder falls silent, indicating the import from the phone has finished, and only then will it import all the photos taken as one event.Â
Info:
Macbook Pro, 2.8GHz, 4GB RAM, 450GB HD
Actually in the files i am trying to rename the first 2 digits are numbers then space and then there is the file name i want to use.
Info:
Automator, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I've able to get an automator service to rename a bunch of files exactly the way I want by having it "Copy Finder Items" and then Make Finder Items Sequential". But it then dumps all the renamed files on the desktop.How do I add an option for it to either create a folder to put it in or dump the files into a pre-existing folder?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm kind of new to Automator and I'm trying to come up with a sequence that will severely save me a few hours a day moving files from two larger folders into smaller folders. Basically the setup is that I have two folders, one constantly being populated with images and the other with video files. They each have file names starting with a two digit number (i.e. 12, 11, 10...) or "BG" and then a two digit number (i.e. BG12, BG11, BG10...) with the digits corresponding to a year. Essentially, I'd need to move the files into folders corresponding to the year (i.e. files starting with BG12 and 12 would be moved to 2012, files starting with BG11 and 11 would be moved to 2011, etc). As it stands now, I've only been able to get the 2012 folder populated.
Info:
Automator, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
I am new to Automator, and even though I have been tinkering around with it for about an hour, I can't seem to create an action.
What I want to do is have Automator automatically take the contents of a specific folder on my hard drive, print the contents of the folder (usually PDFs), then delete the files. I use dropbox, so when I place a pdf into this folder from my laptop on the go, it would be nice to come home to it printed, and no longer in the folder taking up space.
I've been scouring Google for an Automator action that will allow me to drop .doc or .docx files into a directory and convert them to .odt, but so far I've had no luck. Can this easily be done or does it require a lot of programming knowledge to pull off? I really hope someone can help as this is a repetitive task that would save me a great deal of time.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI just recently bought a white macbook and it came with over 2000 music files is this normal?
View 22 Replies View RelatedI have transferred my itunes music on to my external HD. The music is there and that is fine. I then deleted the old itunes folder from my actual HD. I have now wanted to access the music on the external HD, and have attempted to select the new music file location on the external HD via the itunes/preferences/advanced window,selected the new file path and it will just not show in itunes!
View 12 Replies View RelatedI am trying to set up a folder action to do the following... When a file is added to the "images" folder a new dated subfolder would automatically be created, and the file would be moved to this new dated subfolder.Â
Here's what I have so far (which I'm sure is way off base)Â
1) Folder action receives files and folders added to "Images"
2) Filter finder items - Find files where ALL of the following is true: Kind is ANY
3) New Folder - Name is "_" Where: "Images"
4) Add Date or Time to Finder Item Names: Add Date to folder name
5) Move Finder Items: This is the step that I'm stuck on. I don't know how indicate the newly created folder in step 3Â
Another question I have is how to make automator check to see if there's already a subfolder with the current date and put the file in that subfolder instead of creating a new subfolder with a duplicate name.Â
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Im new to the Mac operating system. I am proficient on a PC, but Macs have always captivated my attention. I finally gave into the Macbook. Anyways ---
The Automator application seems phenomenal in theory I just haven't learned all the ins and outs yet, but i see the concept that it was designed for (Jobs = Genius). Long story short I was streaming all of my music over from my PC and it got interrupted twice. I kept streaming to the same folder but it never prompted me to replace existing files of the same name. So I figured it would do it automatically. To my dismay that wasn't the case at all. I now have 9,000 songs and at least 4,000 of which are duplicates/Triplets. I wanted to know if there was some way to streamline the process of deleting and purging all these files out of my Music Folder/Itunes Library, Via the Automator program or any other program you know of.
I have some sound effects that I have on my external hard drive that I want to listen to and add to my iTunes, but whenever I go to do that I get a message that says I don't have permission to write on my music folder. I am the only account on my Macbook Pro. I checked and I have the rights to read and write on my music folder. I don't know how to fix the problem. It also happens when I add music that I downloaded from the internet not iTunes. Sometimes with that I just have to hold option or command (I don't remember off the top of my head) and that'll let me copy the music into a folder that I created. How can I get permission to write into/onto my music folder for my Macbook Pro?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a Lacie external hard disk that was originally formatted for PCs. I have some files there, but more importantly, my iTunes library is saved directly on the Lacie (I have everything on apple lossless, so they are some big files). I will keep using this PC while connected to the Lacie hard disk to syncro my iPod.
The problem is that I bought a mac now and I wanted the Lacie hard disk to be able to transfer files from mac to pc and vice versa. I have already read that I would have to copy the files that are on the Lacie, reformat the Lacie and then paste the files back. My only doubt is that if I do this reformatting, will I have any problems using the iTunes library while connected to my pc and iPod?
I just ask that because every time I changed any iTunes library folder on the computer, the iTunes would say that the music file couldn�t be found and ask me if I wanted to look for the file. I didn�t want to reformat the Lacie to later find out that I would have to �look for� every single music file, because that would be nearly impossible. I don�t know if I was able to make my question really clear�
After carrying out a clean install of Mavericks is it possible to reload certain files such as Music files from the Time Machine back-ups previously created?Â
View 1 Replies View RelatedI have set up an automator service that TAR's a folder into an archive for me and it works quite nicely. Idealy however, I would like to be able to highlight several folders, right click and have automator tar each folder into it's own TAR archive, but do it one by one. Â
[Code]...
I'm not 100% sure so I guess it would be a good time to verify, is there a problem with having the system try to TAR multiple folders at one time? If it is not a problem then I guess this discussion itself is pointless and I can simple right click on each folder and select "TAR Folder" and just wait until they're all finished. I would think that it would be ideal for the system to do each one individually and not try to do them all at one time.Â
I have just purchased my first mac! A refurbed iMac! and I now want to move my music files across onto it. I am very pedantic and would like my HD to be as tidy as possible. My question is: Where should I place my Music Files on the HD?
1.) Should I create a music folder within the HD Music Folder and allow iTunes to copy/duplicate the files into the iTunes Folder? (Selecting the options via iTunes Preferences).
2.) Transfer the music files directly into the iTunes Folder?
Or something else? What method do you guys use to store your music files on the HD? I intend to have some sub folders within the main folder to separate Albums and individual artists or tracks I have downloaded in the past etc. Finally, If I use the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" option, will my tracks be renamed? As I intend to name/keep files names in a format I prefer.
-My job is offering to buy me new Mac laptop (like ). Â
-At home I already own a 5 year old Mac Book Pro, upgradable to Lion, beat up on the outside, could change hard drive myself. Â
-Also own a iMac which has a new 1TB hard drive I put in there. This machine is not upgradable to Lion. Connected to this iMac is a 1TB external back up drive which backs up this iMac. Â
I have right now about 75GB of music in my iTunes right now (on MacBookPro), plus about 600 Cds to be ripped and imported at some point. I am considering using Amazon Music Cloud or iTunes Match at some point but....I may will still want to have a backup of my music anyway? and it may be I may not like playing music off of clouds? (because it relies on my intenert connection....)Â
So if I was to store my music collection.....should it be on:Â -The old iMac; use it as a jukebox? Can I control the iMac and its iTunes from new laptop? (iMac is 10.4.8 which may have sharing limits?)-Is this practical? Â
-Are there external hard drives out there that wake up fast and put music there? (in the past, loading the library takes longer when having the music on external hard drive). Â
Overall, I live in a small place so I dont necessarily want to fill up my space with mutliple computers. I almost wish I didnt have the old machines, it would simplify my decisions!Â
running osx 10.5.8
I let itunes organize my library on my imac drive
yesterday i downloaded itunes/quicktime updates, restarted. today i went to play music and got the (!) icon on all of my music. i did a spotlight search for songs/artists, returned no results... where did my music go? 6k songs are missing!
I didn't delete my music, I checked my trash, which hasn't been emptied in a few days. the last time i listened to music with itunes was yesterday.
Ok so yesterday I logged into my account on my computer and clicked itunes to open it. Instead of going to my library it said It cannot find my music library and told me to locate it. I clicked "Locate" and it went to my finder. We have had an external drive for the the past 6 months and I had been storing all my itunes on the external drive AND on the normal hard drive. So when I clicked the locate button, I chose the itunes library in my external library. Now my library is setup like it was about 2 years ago, complete with ipod nano games, playlist, and songs I have deleted. when I click a song to play it says "Cannot locate file." If i go into the finder and find the normal hard drive, and go into itunes media, I can double click the songs and play the songs in itunes. So I have no idea why all this happened but Is the only way to get all my songs back, to delete all the songs that cannot be l0 located and drag my whole library thats stored on my normal hard drive into itunes?
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