OS X's Folder Actions feature lets you assign AppleScripts to be executed whenever a monitored folder experiences a change, such as the addition of a file. This is a fantastic workflow automation tool that you can use in a myriad different ways.
The key to successful workflow automation with Folder Actions is a repetitive task or event. In order to implement Folder Actions, you must create an AppleScript to perform the task for you. AppleScript is OS X's built-in scripting language. It's somewhat easy to learn, but teaching you how to create your own AppleScripts is beyond the scope of this tip. Instead, we'll use one of the pre-made AppleScripts included with OS X.
The Event to Automate
My wife and I work on a small home network that consists of various computers, printers, and other shared resources. Our offices are in different parts of the house, and we often exchange files during the day. We could use email to send these files to each other, but more often than not, we just copy the files to shared folders on our computers. This method is handy for quick drag-and-drop file sharing, but unless one of us sends a message to the other, we don't know that there's a new file in our shared folder unless we happen to look.
Enter Folder Actions. One of the pre-made AppleScripts for Folder Actions is called 'new item alerts.' As you can guess from its name, this AppleScript watches a folder you specify. When something new is added to the folder, the AppleScript will display a dialog box announcing that the folder has a new item, a simple and elegant solution. Of course, this means I no longer have an excuse for not working on a new file, but everything has its down side.
Create the Folder Action
- Right-click the folder you want to monitor.
- Select ‘Configure Folder Action' from the pop-up menu. Depending on what contextual menu items you (or an application) may have added, the ‘Configure Folder Action’ menu item may be listed under ‘More’ in the pop-up menu.
- The Folder Actions Setup window will appear.
- Click the ‘+’ sign at the bottom of the left-hand list to add a folder to the list of Folders with Actions.
- A standard Open dialog box will display.
- Select the folder you want to monitor and click the ‘Open’ button.
- A list of available AppleScripts will display.
- Select ‘add – new item alert.scpt’ from the list of scripts.
- Click the ‘Attach’ button.
- Make sure the 'Enable Folder Actions' box is ticked.
- Close the Folder Actions Setup window.
Now whenever an item is added to the specified folder, a dialog box will display the following text: ‘Folder Action Alert: One new item has been placed in folder ‘{folder name}.' The Folder Action Alert dialog box will also give you the option of viewing the new item(s).
The Folder Actions Alert dialog box will eventually dismiss itself, so if you're off having tea, you could miss a notification. Hmmm…maybe I have an excuse after all.
