Using Automator to launch Safari and webpages

You created a Quick Action which takes input and processes that input.

It should only get files and folders if your ctrl-click on one or a selection of them and select the Quick Action from the contextual menu. But, it could be that it is getting input when you invoke it using Siri or Spotlight.

Since you didn't want any input, you should have just created a plain workflow.

If you want it available in the Services menu or the contextual menu, you can set it for No Input instead of Files and Folders.

I was mistaken. You created an Application, not a Quick Action.

This shows that it is not a plain Workflow:

If you started with a plain Workflow, you converted it to an Application at some point.

An Application will take input and process that input. Your application will try to open whatever you pass to it with Safari, along with the web sites you entered.

A Quick Action will appear in the Services menu and in the ctrl-click contextual menu (if you select input it accepts).

An Application and a plain Workflow will not appear there.

When I double click on it, it launches, but it takes over on other Safari's open on other desktops. I generally have 3-4 Desktops set on the top of the screen.

How can I get it to open a new separate Safari first. When I open a separate Safari I do not know how to get the workflow to open within that Safari.

You are using Full Screen. I don't use it at all, so not sure exactly what it is you are seeing or how to fix it.

I'm not sure how to tell it to open a new browser window. You could run an AppleScript action and tell Safari to open a new document window, then run open web pages action which might open them in the new window. But, it might be easier to just do the whole thing with an AppleScript.

The answer to this question could be used for what you want. Just add more lines in the tell window 1 block.

The part about wanting to open a new Safari window is not possible in Automator.

There are built-in ways to open multiple sites at the same time, but they will open in tabs within the same browser Window. I think there is a way to disable tabbed browsing (and documents in other apps), but I’m not at my Mac to explain where to find the settings

Are you aware that Safari can automatically start up with the same windows/tabs as existed when last you had Safari open?

If this is what you're trying to accomplish just open Safari Preferences and in the General tab, change the "Safari Opens with" option to "All windows from last session".

Good luck...

I can't think of a way to make automator do it without using an AppleScript Action.

But since Automator offers nothing additional to this solution, you could just make it an AppleScript application.

Open Script Editor and paste in the following code. Edit the URLs and Add additional open location lines as needed.

tell application "Safari"
	make new document with properties {URL:"https://www.apple.com"}
	open location "support.apple.com"
end tell

Note that the URL property needs to be a full URL while the open location command can leave off the protocol.

You can save that as an application in Script Editor.

There is one thing you could do with Automator, though. If you wanted to create a shortcut for the app, you could make a Quick Action in Automator.

Set it to receive no input in any application.

Add a run AppleScript Action.

Replace the code in the action with the above code (edited as required).

Save that Quick Action, then go to the Keyboard System Preferences and create a custom shortcut for the Quick Action.

There is a bug that surfaces occasionally where the shortcut will not trigger until you select the Quick Action from the Services menu for the first time.