macOS Applescript to move all .mp4 & .m4v from dropbox

dglenn9000 · May 30, 2013

I am looking for an Applescript to move all .mp4 & .m4v from my dropbox folder to my itunes media folder. Any suggestions?

kryten2 · May 31, 2013

I would suggest you take a look at Automator to do this.

Edit : If dropbox folder is on indexed drive then mdfind is fast. But like subsonix said if you want iTunes to be aware of them you need to import them.

Code:

mdfind -0 -onlyin ~/Dropbox/ "(kMDItemFSName = "*.mp4" || kMDItemFSName = "*.m4v")" | xargs -0 ...

sero · Jun 1, 2013

one liner in terminal

Code:

for i in $(find ~/Dropbox -name "*.mp4"); do mv $i itunes_folder; done

chown33 · Jun 1, 2013

sero said:
one liner in terminal

Code:

[COLOR="Red"]for i in $(find ~/Dropbox -name "*.mp4")[/COLOR]; do mv $i itunes_folder; done

The red-hilited part can be replaced with:

Code:

for i in ~/Dropbox/*.mp4

Shell pattern-matching (globbing) suffices.

FWIW, the posted code won't work if there are spaces embedded in any filename. The problem exists for both approachs ('find' or globbing).

subsonix · Jun 1, 2013

sero said:
one liner in terminal

Code:

for i in $(find ~/Dropbox -name "*.mp4"); do mv $i itunes_folder; done

I don't think it's enough to just move the files, if you want iTunes to be aware of them you need to import them. There is an "import to iTunes" action available in Automator though, and it's also available by default in the context menu on OS X if you select a media file.

sero · Jun 2, 2013

chown33 said:
The red-hilited part can be replaced with:

Code:

for i in ~/Dropbox/*.mp4

I was assuming the files are not all in the top level dir, otherwise this would be easy enough in finder. But the OP didn't really specify.

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macOS Applescript to move all .mp4 & .m4v from dropbox

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