Automator Folder Action not behaving

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Wikisnoodle Author

Level 1

4 points

Automator Folder Action not behaving

I have a Folder Action, created in Automator, with the following 5 Actions…

Find Finder Items in ‘Desktop/DROP’ whose file extension is ‘jpg’ or ‘jpeg’

Rename Finder Items: Replace Text ‘_2’, in basename, with nothing (ie: delete ‘_2’)

Change type of images to ‘HEIF’ (Pixelmator Action)

Find Finder Items in ‘Desktop/DROP’ whose file extension is ‘heic’

Move Finder Items to ‘Desktop/COMPLETED’

It works! All jpgs are successfully renamed, changed to .heic and moved, but a random* number of the files remain in ‘DROP’ (as well) and, although they are .heics, the script keeps trying to ‘change’ the filetype to .heic, this slows my Mac† down dramatically and runs the fans. Manually deleting the duplicates solves the problem but…

Why is the script creating duplicates in ‘DROP’?

Why is the script acting on .heic files?

How do I stop it doing this?

*the random files are not necessarily consecutive, I haven’t spotted any reason for those particular files to cause a problem. How many there are also seems random, eg: batch convert 7 files and get 3 random duplicates; batch convert 10 files and get 1 random duplicate!?

†’17 MacBook Pro · macOS10.15.7

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 29, 2021 12:23 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

Level 10

116,777 points

Sep 29, 2021 3:00 PM in response to Wikisnoodle

Unless I have somehow misread your post, you are imposing subsequent write operations on the dropped files in that DROP folder by renaming and converting to .heic while the files are still in it. Each subsequent write operation forces the Folder Action to run again on that folder. That is why I suggested you detect the files in that folder with a Folder Action, but move them to the Completed folder where your renaming and image conversion write activities do not trigger the Folder Action to rerun itself.

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Answer 2

Sep 29, 2021 1:28 PM in response to Wikisnoodle

Automator Folder actions fire as many times as a file is written in the assigned folder. To avoid this, you would have to move the dropped jpe?g files to the Completed folder and then, apply all the other workflow actions on it there.

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Answer 3

Wikisnoodle Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 29, 2021 2:29 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks for the swift reply. I should have explained that the DROP folder is empty. I use Photolemur to batch enhance images, but it doesn’t save to HEIF yet. That program saves jpgs into DROP, which activates the process. The process moves the files to COMPLETED as the last part of the process (and that should empty DROP).

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Answer 4

Wikisnoodle Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 30, 2021 3:14 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks for persevering. It’s now working. I have used three folders and split the folder action into two. 20 years ago I was doing this sort of stuff as part of my job, long retired I find it takes a frustratingly long trial and error time and it gets in the way of gardening and DIY!!

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Answer 5

Sep 30, 2021 3:40 PM in response to Wikisnoodle

You are welcome. Can't get in the way of gardening now can we… 😎

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Automator Folder Action not behaving

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