Updating Finder Workflows in SnowLeopard

30 August, 2009

in Popular, apple

Because I upload images to several different locations, I often have to resize images after I’ve saved them to my hard drive. Rather than saving several different copies in Photoshop, I save one large image and then use an Automator action to resize the images for this blog. If you’ve never used Automator on OS X, I highly recommend checking out Automator: Your Personal Automation Assistant to discover new ways to automate tasks on OS X.

This morning while working on another project, I discovered that my Resize Image workflow wasn’t working. I upgraded to Snow Leopard yesterday (no, I’m not going to say it), so I hazarded a guess that might be the reason my action wasn’t working anymore. After upgrading to OS X 10.6, you’ll need to update your Automator actions by turning them into Services. Here’s how to do that:

1. Open your old Finder workflow in Automator to use it as a guide.

2. Choose File -> New

3. Select Service as your workflow template.

4. Choose the kind of data input your service requires. I want my service to behave exactly like it did before, so I chose “Files or Folders” from the “Service receives selected” and “Finder” from the popup menus. If you want selected text to be overwritten with text specified in the workflow, select “Replaces selected text”.

5. According to the Automator Help documentation, I should have been able to select all in my old Automator Workflow and Paste the actions into the new one. I wasn’t able to do that, so using the old workflow as a guide, I created a new workflow with the same steps by dragging actions from the Library.

6. Save your workflow. After you’ve saved it, it will be available from the Services menu and as a keyboard shortcut.

Do you use AUtomator on your system? What kinds of tasks have you scripted?

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Tagged as: Automator, Mac OS X, Mac OS X v10.6, Snow Leopard

  • Tiago
    Hi, can you help me please?
    Where automator workflows are stored/saved?

    I want to open pre-installed workflows and learn how to create new ones.

    Thank you,
    Tiago.

    ps. sorry about my english
  • Cecily Walker
    Tiago, check ~/Library/Services.
  • Tiago
    Thank you Cecily, but the services are not there, just the services created by me.

    I am looking for "Look up in Dictionary" service. It appears in Safari for example. I want duplicate that service and edit it.
  • Cecily Walker
    Make sure you're looking in Macintosh HD/Library/Services, not Your Home Directory/Library/Services. It appears they can be hiding almost anywhere, however. I've found Microsoft services in the Microsoft User Data folder, and some others in /Library/Application Support/Apple/Automator/Workflows.

    For what it's worth, I don't have "Look Up In Dictionary" in Safari in the Services menu, I only have it as a Contextual Menu item. I think it may be a Keyboard shortcut, not an Automator Workflow.
  • Twisted Dog
    Thanks, this was killing me!
  • Newton
    Thanks for this! Just updated to Snow Leopard (finally came to India) and it killed my workflows. Got them working now.
    The ones I use the most are converting image files (RAW,PSD) to JPEG. And the other one is importing MP3 files as AAC into iTunes.
  • Cecily Walker
    Newton, I'd love to see a tutorial on importing MP3s as AAC files.
  • somethingyourenot
    Has anyone managed to get the old "combine PDFs" action to work in Snow Leopard?
  • You know, I've never used Automator. Might have to play around with it.
  • Cecily Walker
    Heh. Mouse over the text in all capitals in the post. I couldn't resist.
  • Cecily Walker
    Myles,

    Check the help documentation in Automator, under Creating Workflows -> If your Finder plug-in workflow doesn't work. I think there's something there that might help you solve this problem.
  • KITTEH! I said it for you.
  • M Harris
    I was able to use a file called AES256Service.service for text encryption in Leopard. It was an applescript downloaded from the net that you put in the services folder in Library. You highlighted the text you wish to encrypt, pressed command/shift/E and added a password in the box that popped up. The reverse was to press command/shift/D and re-insert the password to decrypt.

    Starting with the file AES256Service.service on my desktop, how would I use Automator to put it into the services menu ?
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