How do I Reset/Clear the Automator "Find Finder Items" context?

I have an Automator workflow that performs stacked "Find Finder Items" operations and then will perform a "Move Finder Items" based on those results and then start another series of stacked "Find Finder Item"/"Filter Finder Items" operations with an associated "Move Finder Items" operation.


At the end of the workflow there is a "Find Finder Items" action whose input is to a "Move Finder Items to Trash" action. The issue I am encountering is that the "Find Finder Items" list from the prior to previous non-trash "move" operations are still in the list of files so that they end up being deleted by the "Move Finder Items to Trash" even though I expected the prior "Moves" would have cleared the context of an prior "Find" operations before continuing on. However, this does not appear to be the case and I cannot find any action to explicitly clear the "find" context before starting the next "Find".

What is odd is that the only "Move" that seems to act on files that weren't explicitly matched by the most recent "Find" is the one to "Move Finder Items to Trash". The prior "Move Finder Items" to a specific folder don't seem to mess with files that were previously moved if they don't show up in the folder of the most recent "Find Finder Items" that I intended to be used as the input list of files that specific "Move" Finder Items" action was intended to move.


I have confirmed by clicking on the "Results" of each action in the work flow that once a finder list of files is created it is carried on throughout the workflow even after matching move actions have occurred.


It also looks like "Find Finder Items" may also be traversing sub-directories/sub-folders of the specified folder when producing the list of finder items. This causes unnecessary work if I am trying to match on files in the parent to move to a subfolder. If this is the default behavior is there a way to disable it?


Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,


Ted

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), Automator

Posted on Aug 22, 2017 3:18 PM

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1 reply

Aug 22, 2017 3:43 PM in response to mypupsrgr8

UPDATE: It looks like by selecting the "Ignore this action's input" option on the first "Find Finder Item" action after a "Move Finder Items" action, I can clear the previously produced list of items. However, if I then encounter a "Move Finder Items" action that is presented with a "null" list an error occurs. I would think it would be a normal condition for a move to not always have anything to do if no items were found. Is there a way to prevent this?


So, I now need to be able to prevent "Find Finder Items" actions from traversing subfolders and prevent an error from occurring when a "Move Finder Items" action is supplied with a null input list.

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How do I Reset/Clear the Automator "Find Finder Items" context?

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