Stop Ignoring Automator

For a long time I considered Automater as a program that wasn’t intended for normal person usage. In fact whenever I am using it at home, I have to tell my son that it is not in fact some sort of Wall-E application.

Automator is for taking lots of files, using a work flow to change something with those files and then giving you a file you can work with. For example, let’s say you get four days worth of XDCAM files from your producer. They may be on different cards, but messy file names don’t help you differentiate sometimes. Open up Automator and use it to make unique file names to each day.

You do this by;

1. Open Automator. Click on workflow.

2. Drag the files you want to modify into the right window.

3. Select a workflow you want to apply to it. In this case we will modify filename only. Choose “Rename Finder Items.” Change those settings as you please and then hit “Run” with the play button in the top right hand corner.

Bam! In a split (almost) second you have altered finder name.

This is just one case of Automator usage. This morning I used it to scale images 50% and flatten photoshop images into jpeg files. Great stuff!