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Best Tool for Finder Automation

Auggie

Auggie

macrumors 6502
Original poster
It's been decades since I really did any software development; I used to be really good. But a completely, different yet rewarding career sidelined my software development aspirations and I haven't really dabbled in it for a long time.

Question: I have a tons of files I want to examine their names, create folders for them, moving them within, and rename them. I want a Drag-n-Drop solution (desktop short for instance), or even a contextual menu selection, and done.

Would the best tool be Automator, Apple Script, and/or a non-Apple solution, whether it be Python or commercial application/utility?

I've done some Googling but the results are quite staggering and to be honest, I don't have much time on my hands to research each potential solution thoroughly (not enough time split between home repairs, improvements, car repair and maintenance, etc... the chores of life).

I hope sage advice here can direct me to the most probable candidates and I can devote my little time to learn/re-learn that process thoroughly and develop my solution.
 
Sounds daunting and time-consuming!

You might need to describe the process in more detail to get good suggestions.
 
I haven't done any type of programming and scripting for many, MANY years, but I used to be a Shareware Developer. And WAY back Time Machine, I did 6502 machine language programming on the Apple II+!

Anywho, I sat down and spent an afternoon relearning AppleScript and ginned out a working solution that takes multiple selected folders in the Finder and recursively scans and processes them.

BUT, since it relies almost exclusively on the Finder, and since my 2019 Mac Pro hasn't been as speedy since upgrading to Tahoe, I get a lot of "Finder Busy" errors, especially if I'm trying to handle multiple folders while using my Mac for other things.

For now it does the job, albeit slowly, and with those dreaded busy errors. Luckily the recursive nature of the script I can simply re-run it and it will finish through all the nested folders eventually.

I'll rewrite it in different development environment someday: Perhaps Xcode, which I only dabbled in briefly but nothing really major. Good time to really learn it...
 
A bit off-topic perhaps, but here's a Finder tip that not so many are familiar with; copying multiple file names to create a text file:

Simply select the files you want listed, hit cmd-C, and paste into a simple text editor like Stickies. It will strip the copied text of all formating and you have a list of the file names. You can also use a more complete text editor like Textedit, using the 'Paste without formatting' (Option+Shift+Command+V) in the edit menu.
 
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Auggie said:
It's been decades since I really did any software development; I used to be really good. But a completely, different yet rewarding career sidelined my software development aspirations and I haven't really dabbled in it for a long time.

Question: I have a tons of files I want to examine their names, create folders for them, moving them within, and rename them. I want a Drag-n-Drop solution (desktop short for instance), or even a contextual menu selection, and done.

Would the best tool be Automator, Apple Script, and/or a non-Apple solution, whether it be Python or commercial application/utility?

I've done some Googling but the results are quite staggering and to be honest, I don't have much time on my hands to research each potential solution thoroughly (not enough time split between home repairs, improvements, car repair and maintenance, etc... the chores of life).

I hope sage advice here can direct me to the most probable candidates and I can devote my little time to learn/re-learn that process thoroughly and develop my solution.
Click to expand...
MacOS is Unix!

You can pop open a Terminal window and there you are, in Unix-land! You can run python, perl and other scripting languages natively and you can find beaucoup example scripts in either language that should get you started.

Perl is especially good at tasks such as that and you won’t have any Finder Busy messages because it’s incredibly efficient. I doubt there’s much learning curve because you can almost certainly find a script that’s 99 percent of what you want, then you just modify it as needed.
 
You can run python, shell and other scripts within Automator and Shortcuts, giving you the GUI front-end to whatever your scripts need to do. Including AppleScript, but I find its "English-ness" actually makes it more confusing.
 
you can also use AI like chatgpt to write a script for you. Then you only have to review it and test it....
Checking if a piece of code might do the trick is a lot easier than writing it yourself in a (programming) language you are not fluent in.
If you tell an AI in detail what you want, it actually produces quite decent code which does work.
Maybe this tip helps you to solve some problems.
 
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