Automator

[VaderDSL]

Just wondering what other people use this absolute gem of a utility for?

I use it at work to automate, funnily enough several repetitive tasks,
But I am interested in seeing what other people use it for and hopefully pick up a few tips.

I also use it to automatically move and delete all pdfs (I download probably 100+ a day in the job I do, and manually clearing out the downloads folder got tiring) so now I have an ical event to automtically purge the folder/trash.

 

[whitecrook]

Tell us more. I could use it for sorting my downloads - but how?

 

[VaderDSL]

What do you tend to download a lot of?

Myself I have my downloads folder automatically file away any webarchives of online receipts.

 

[whitecrook]

I download dmgs, zips, movies, audio, pictures, all sorts... Hence Usually every so often I go in and drag the video to my video folders and sort by series etc, drag the music to my music archive, collate all the dmgs, and then I check which ones are old and delete them etc Loads of tedious work, hence my 500G download drive is 77GB free, and I have far to many files to bother sorting anymore, so i'll probably just delete most of it ....

What do you tend to download a lot of?

Myself I have my downloads folder automatically file away any webarchives of online receipts.

this sounds quite neat, but how do you do that, what is your process. I could just make a Receipts folder, and print to pdf any receipts i get and savethem there, but using automater must make it better, but in what way

 

[PardonTheWait]

this sounds quite neat, but how do you do that, what is your process. I could just make a Receipts folder, and print to pdf any receipts i get and savethem there, but using automater must make it better, but in what way

There's a way of doing this anyway - if you go to print the page, then hit the PDF button, there is an option for 'save to Web Receipts Folder'. It'll make one in your Documents folder

Automator is mega useful for loads of bits though.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I have an automator action that creates symbolic links (click here)

Drag the source in to the action, select a destination and bob's your father's brother. No messy Terminal commands

I actually used it to re-direct my steam GCF folder on to my NAS, and it works flawlessly.