Mac automator to rerun a python script if first attempt failed

automatoremailpython

I wrote a python script to automatically send emails and used automator to run it by run shell:

/usr/local/bin/python /Users/austin/PycharmProjects/assignments/assignments.py

This assignments.py prints 'successfully sent the mail' after emails are sent

I'm wondering if there is a way to let automator rerun this script if it did not receive the 'successfully sent the mail'

Best Answer

It really depends - is there any "pause" or do you want to continually keep sending emails? This sounds a bit SPAM-y?

If you have created a 'process' that does some checks and then if there is work to be performed - it does its work and when finished goes back to "sleep". This sounds more like a daemon task loop.

You can leverage launchctl. It will keep a daemon/process running indefinitely. I'd suggest you install your script in your user space not the system. The only difference is it will not start up until you log into your Mac.

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Where did you install the “brightness” command? Even if you've set up your PATH in the shell rc scripts, it may not take effect for these commands because Automator isn't run from a shell. (You can set environment for all programs including GUI using ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, but I wouldn't recommend fiddling with PATH just for this.)

I suggest changing your Automator workflow to use the full path to where it's installed, e.g.

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MacOS – “Natively” add emails to Mail by PHP pipe script

You can do what you ask, but it requires a Mailbox > Rebuild operation. That asks Mail to scan the ~/Library/Mail directory you found and rebuild its email header database from the files it finds there. I doubt you'd find that acceptable.

I'm afraid Gerry's comment above is the right way to go about this: set up a test email account somewhere, use one of the many PHP-to-SMTP methods you can find online, and point Apple Mail at that email account.

Perhaps the simplest, most Apple-like way to achieve that end is with OS X Server. It gives you a configuration UI for the Postfix SMTP mail server built into OS X. Setup through the Server GUI is about as easy as you can hope for. You can create a private user account, and be assured that your test emails won't ever even leave the machine. As cheap as OS X Server is these days, it's pretty much a no-brainer.

If you absolutely have to do this for no cost, you can configure Postfix by hand. The configuration GUI you get with OS X Server is helpful, but not strictly necessary.

Best Answer

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