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Undo Automator Mistake...or fix!

Hi all,


This is my first time posting a question, I apologize in advance for any breaches of etiquette.


I'm running OS X 10.8 on a 15" Macbook Pro.


My last backup was a month ago, and kind of sloppy, and I'm in this process of organizing, cutting the fat, and becoming regular with the backups! Oy vey.


I am in the process of organizing my digital assets. I have been very disorganized! I wanted to use Automator to help streamline the process. I am not experienced with Automator, even though I have played around with it a bit over the years.


My goal: To get every document on my hard drive in one folder.

The result: A bunch of files, PDFs, log files, jpegs, .ics files, some avi, audio etc all moved from their homes to one folder. (This is a problem because I do not know where many of those files the log files, the crash reports, ICS files, javascript stuff etc live, so I don't know how to return them to their homes or if the fact that they are not in their home folders is a big deal!!!)


The workflow:

Files and folders --> Find Finder Items -->Search --> My User Name

If (all) of the following are true: (kind is document).

then

Move finder items --> (Master Documents)


I wanted to see if I could test it before I ran the workflow and then accidentally ran the workflow and now everything is a mess!!


From there I did:


Files and folders --> Find Finder Items -->Search --> Master Documents

If (any) of the following are true: (extension is doc, docx, pages)

then

Move finder items ---> (The Real Master Documents)


And then that folder was filled with all my documents. Which made me happy...til I realized that those documents are also still contained in Master Documents...but not ANYWHERE in my documents folder. They are not aliases, from the look of it.


QUESTIONS:


Do I have two sets of documents now? If I delete one set, will the other be affected?

What do I do with the folder that has so many things living in it now? Is there a way to undo this action?

Any ideas as to where I should go from here?


Thanks in advance for your help. Please let me know what I can do or where I can go for more help!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 8, 2012 7:50 AM

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Undo Automator Mistake...or fix!

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