The Best Automator Scripts for macOS

By doing so, Automator becomes accessible even to average Mac users, who only need to understand that an action may require certain information from a previous action in the workflow to perform a task. Of course, if you know shell commands then you can extend the power of Automator further within any given workflow – which we’ll demonstrate below.

It’s easy to create Automator scripts with just a little bit of knowledge, and by following our tips you’ll be able to make use of them to fix certain issues, perform mundane actions and generally boost your productivity and optimize the Mac’s performance.

Remove files permanently

Advanced Mac users have at their fingertips far more control over their computer than the average user, and that’s mostly thanks to shell commands. Think about the hassle of dragging files to the trash can and then manually right-clicking on the icon and selecting “Empty Trash” from the menu – not a difficult or long task, but a nuisance all the same.

Fortunately, there is an easy way to automate this process with Automator via a super-easy shell command. In essence, you’ll be creating a black hole on your system, so it is absolutely necessary to pay attention to the shell script to make sure you properly copy and paste the command from our guide to avoid the removal of any other files on your desktop.

Automatically move and sort downloaded items

It’s easy to keep the Downloads folder uncluttered without any manual input, you just need a good Automator workflow that will sort the files based on the rules that you set. In our example, we will create a folder action that will collect all DMG files in one folder and all pictures in another. First, you need to create two new folders, which we created on our desktop and named Disk Images and My Pics.

Automate folder backup

Time Machine does a great job of backing up data, but sometimes you need a little more. Perhaps you might need a secondary copy of important data or maybe you need backups more frequently than Time Machine provides. The Automator workflow below does just that, by taking items placed into a specific folder and backing them up onto another drive.

As you can see, the possibilities are limited only by the number of built-in library items. However, with a little bit of programming knowledge you will push yourself beyond these limits, and as a result end up writing scripts and creating workflows for all sorts of complex tasks – such as finding duplicated files or even showing hidden files.