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Moving to existing folders Automator Service

So, the end result is to make this a service, but I don't care if I have to make this in applescript first. The result is to be able to select a number of files and have the service prompt me to choose between moving between Specific folders.


Ex: If I have a few files selected in /System/Library/Coreservices/ (of course this is not where I'm moving files from), I'd want to move those files to either /Users/Apple/Desktop/ or /Users/Apple/Pictures/ or /Users/Apple/Library/.


In Automator the closest thing I could do to this was have it so I'd select items and then it would prompt me where to move them. I added variables into this, however only one would show up.


In summary, how do I have it so I can move to a selection of paths??

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion, 2.6Ghz quad i7 512SSD 8GB RAM

Posted on Jan 5, 2013 9:26 PM

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Posted on Jan 5, 2013 10:06 PM

You can use the Get Specified Finder Items action followed by Choose from List, then put the result into your destination variable. Note that if you are using the Copy or Move Finder Items actions and there are multiple selections from the list, only the first destination item will be used.

6 replies

Jan 5, 2013 10:43 PM in response to red_menace

I think what your saying is a little over my head. I'm not very familiar with Automator. What I had after your instruction was Get Specified Finder items, then to a choose from list. When I got to this part it listed the path of the images I was testing it with, allowing me to check which imagse I wanted to continue with the action? Then it prompeted me (upon my request) to choose the path from the defaults (Desktop, home, etc.) and one of my variables.


All that set aside I feel I'm more so on the right path. I was able to make a bunch of variables, each containing my desired paths. I was also able to get a selection of my files, which I feel could contain my variables. If I could select between my variables that would fix my problem, which may have also been what you were describing when you said,"then put the result into your destination variable," which is where I got lost (bleh run on sentence).


If you could please clarify what you meant there in a more user friendly way, you may be describing the way for me to select which varaibale aka path during the action. Thanks again

Jan 5, 2013 11:09 PM in response to MacMan guy

A service will pass the selected items to the workflow, you can also use something like an Ask for Finder Items action. The example below sets a variable to the original input (so that other actions can be used), gets a choice from the Choose from List dialog and puts it into a variable (you can drag the desired locations into the Get Specified Finder Items action), then gets the original input items back and moves them to the selected destination. Note that the Get Specified Finder Items and Get Value of Variable actions have the option set to ignore their input (so that previous results don't get mixed up with the stuff we want).


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Feb 2, 2014 3:41 AM in response to red_menace

Ok. This works for the LISTED folders. How do I do something like this to choose ANY new folder? I've been struggling with this for as long (years, actually) as I can remember and just spent 3 hours again trying to get it to work. I can get the move action to move either to a default folder, or as above, to something chosen from a predetermined list. But I cannot get it to work on any folder I want. PLEASE HELP!! I only want a simple "move to" service that lets me pick the destination.

Moving to existing folders Automator Service

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