Folder actions is a little-known Mac feature that dates back to the 90s. You can use it to set any folder on your computer to automatically do tasks like converting a file from one format to another or even extracting all the text from a PDF. All you have to do is drag documents to the automated folder. It’s called working smarter, not harder. Pick a script and set your choice by clicking Attach. Back on the main Folder Actions Setup window, make sure to check the box next to Enable Folder Actions. And that’s pretty much it. You can close the setup window and your folder will start performing the assigned task as soon as you drop a file into it. For example, if you choose Duplicate as PNG, whenever you drag a picture into the folder, a PNG version of that image will immediately show up. So there’s no confusion, macOS will automatically create two subfolders as well—one to save the original photos you drag in, and one to save the reformatted versions. Most of these, as you can tell, are related to images. It’s a useful collection but very much only a starting point. The good news is that if you want to go beyond these automations, it’s not hard to build your own scripts.
add – new item alert.scpt: Shows a notification when someone adds a new file to a given folder. This is particularly useful if you share a server or cloud-based storage with other users.close – close sub-folders.scpt: Closes the Finder window when you open a subfolder, which may prevent someone from snooping into folders you don’t want them to see. convert – PostScript to PDF.scpt: Converts a postscript file into a PDF. Image – Add Icon.scpt: Automatically creates an icon for any file. Image – Duplicate as JPEG.scpt: Creates a JPEG version of any image in the folder.Image – Duplicate as PNG.scpt Creates a PNG version of any image in the folder.Image – Duplicate as TIFF.scpt: Creates a TIFF version of any image in the folder. Image – Flip Horizontal.scpt: Flips any image in the folder horizontally.Image – Flip Vertical.scpt: Flips any image in the folder vertically.Image – Info to Comment.scpt: Adds information about the image, such as bit depth and size to the file’s comment field in Finder.Image – Rotate Left.scpt: Rotate any image in the folder counter-clockwise.Image – Rotate Right.scpt: Rotate any image in the folder clockwise. open – Show comments in dialog.scpt: A pop-up window will open with the folder comments every time you open the folder.
There are dozens of different automations you could quickly build this way, including compressing any file into a ZIP archive, scaling any image to a given size, or converting video or audio to a specific format. These are just a few ideas, so you’ll need to dig in to get a feel for what’s really possible. If you are not sure about what one or more of these actions do, look at the bottom left corner of the Automator window. There you’ll find a specialized panel that will show you the details of each script as you select them on the sidebar above it. For example, I can make an automation that extracts the text from any PDF and saves it as rich text by dragging the Extract PDF Text action from the panel on the left to the main panel on the right. If I save the script (go to File and then Save…) it will apply the action to the folder you chose. Apple offers official documentation if you want to dive into the creation of your own scripts. There’s a lot of power there, and every second you invest in creating your own automated folders is free time you’ll be saving in the future.
