It is in my applications folder and looks similar to the mackeeper icon. I tried to move it to the trash but it says it is required by OS X. I have been getting the spinning beachball a lot. Mostly on Safari but only because it is my most used program. I have tried several things to increase the speed. I have upgraded to 8GB of
RAM from Crucial. I've tried clearing the cache and extensions but nothing really seems to help.
iMac (24-inch Early 2009), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)
This is a tool that Apple developed and is shipped with OS X. It provides quick services called "actions" that you can put together in sequence, and thereby create scripts to help you get common and repetitive tasks done with the programs you use. For instance, if you always download particular files and want them to be re-named automatically, you can have Automator do this for you whenever you download the files. As with all scripting approaches, this will take some monkeying around with settings and the logic used, but Automator provides a visual way to do this (albeit with limitations), which has proven to be more intuitive for a number of people. There are some more advanced uses of Automator (such as for creating services, Finder plug-ins, and other details) that can enhance your overall OS X experience, but you need to have a specific need that Automator can provide a solution for.
Overall, its a legitimate program, provided by Apple, and one that may be quite useful. 🙂
For some reason Automator loads on start-up (also Script Editor). I have no use for these programs, can I delete them?
You may have startup items in your account that are causing them to launch.
You cannot, and must not remove Automator. Even if you never use it yourself, OS X uses it in the background for some functions.
Thanks Kurt. I guessed it would be dangerous to remove them. Will have to discover the offending start-up item.
What is automator?
