Scroll to the action titled "Rename Finder Items" and simply drag it over to the larger workflow pane of Automator.Īfter you add the action to the workflow, you will get a warning sheet. Click on Files & Folders under Library, which will give you list of actions for that category.Ĥ. This window is supposed to help you get started with Automator, but I don't think it does a very good job. If you're opening up the latest version of Automator, in Leopard, a Starting Points window will appear. Go to your desktop and use the shortcut key strokes, Shift+Command+N or go to File>New Folder. If you don't have any for the purposes of this tutorial, just create three or four untitled folders on your desktop. First you will need a set of files or folders to rename. And the added bonus is that if you never produced a Automator workflow, just successfully completing one workflow will open the door to many other possibilities.ġ.
But with Automator, we can customize an automation for our own particular needs.
There several small software programs that can do the job for us. Many Mac users work with several dozen or thousands of image or text files in which we need rename all at once. (If you have, let us know.) Maybe this program is only used by shrewd developers who create, design and package software to do essentially the same thing that can be achieved in Automator. It would be interesting to know just how many Mac users have opened Automator, much less created an automation with it. But Apple has given us a way to create our own little Mac gems that we can taylor to our individual needs.
Let's face it, 98% of us Mac users will never ever write a line of code or much less conjure up an original script to solve some vexing Mac problem that Apple failed to address. One the neat things about the little talked about Apple program, Automator, is that it's the software development program for the rest of us.