MacOS – Automator for Saving Attachments

applescriptautomatormacos

I save MANY attachments from one URL about 50 times a day from clients. I'd like to automate the process for when I click on the download attachment button it will save into 1 specific folder when it's coming from that URL.

Is this possible, what do you recommend?

Thanks

Best Answer

It is possible to do this with Services and Automator.

Open Automator and choose to create a Service.

Now add the action "Download URLs" which downloads a URL in Safari. You can now specify the folder the file will be saved.

Set the service to receive URLs in any application and save it. It will look like this :-

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Now when you select a URL in your browser you can right click to get the context menu and under "Services" you will see your new Automator service.

You can even set a keyboard shortcut for it in the Keyboard System Preferences. Once you do that just select the URL and kit the keyboard shortcut.

Related Solutions

MacOS – how to auto download a certain attachment in mail

This is an edited version — quite possibly not the best one — of the script shown in this answer to the Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app in 10.8 Mountain Lion thread, I've tested it and it works:

using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
        tell application "Mail"
            repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
                repeat with theAttachment in eachMessage's mail attachments
                    set attachmentName to name of theAttachment
                    if attachmentName is "blank expense report" then
                        set savePath to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox:" & attachmentName
                        try
                            save theAttachment in file (savePath)
                            on error err
                            display display "The Following Error Occurred:" & err
                        end try
                    end if
                end repeat
            end repeat
        end tell
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

This script will save the attachment named "blank expense report" in a named "Inbox" at Machintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox. Be sure to change the value of savePath variable accordingly to your needs.

Using automator and handbrake cli to convert videos automatically

Process in the background

Ideally, your script needs to complete as quickly as possible. The easiest way is to spin off the processing of the movies into background processes. You can do this by adding a space and an ampersand & to the end of your HandBrakeCLI line.

Move before processing

However, this does not solve the problem of new files being ignored. In fact, your files could now be processed twice if the processing is not finished before the next new file appears.

Your script should move each new file to another unmonitored folder before processing begins. Consider adding a mv command before your HandBrakeCLI line. Alternatively, you could have Automator perform the move.

The destination folder should ideally be on the same drive, so it completes quickly and does not delay the script.