macOS File Batch Renaming

[dlydiamg]

Hi all. I'm new to this forum and extremely new to apple scripting.

I want to set up a watched folder where it will replace part of the name of the files I'm dropping into a folder (ie. name_1up to name_3up) as soon as a new file is placed in the folder.

I tried doing this in automator first. I saved it as a script and attached the script to the folder. It works if I hit run but it doesn't work when I drop a file in the folder. I don't want to set up something that I'd have to run every time, rather a script that would automatically rename the file,

I saw in other forums that this can be accomplished thru applescript, possible shell script?

Another possibility is saving the automator workflow as an app and having a folder action that triggers that app as soon as a new file is dropped in. But again, I can't find a way of doing this and I'm honestly a bit confused as to how to go about writing the action script itself.

I saw this script in another part of this forum but was unable to make it work.

tell application "KoLmafia"
open
end tell

I can understand that it has no even to trigger this but have no idea how to make the even or attach it to the folder

Help anyone?

Thanks for taking the time to read, any help will be greatly appreciated.

dlydiamg

 

[ulbador]

Hi all. I'm new to this forum and extremely new to apple scripting.

I want to set up a watched folder where it will replace part of the name of the files I'm dropping into a folder (ie. name_1up to name_3up) as soon as a new file is placed in the folder.

I tried doing this in automator first. I saved it as a script and attached the script to the folder. It works if I hit run but it doesn't work when I drop a file in the folder. I don't want to set up something that I'd have to run every time, rather a script that would automatically rename the file,

I saw in other forums that this can be accomplished thru applescript, possible shell script?

Another possibility is saving the automator workflow as an app and having a folder action that triggers that app as soon as a new file is dropped in. But again, I can't find a way of doing this and I'm honestly a bit confused as to how to go about writing the action script itself.

I saw this script in another part of this forum but was unable to make it work.

tell application "KoLmafia"
open
end tell

I can understand that it has no even to trigger this but have no idea how to make the even or attach it to the folder

Help anyone?

Thanks for taking the time to read, any help will be greatly appreciated.

dlydiamg

You mention you can save it as an app. Put it in cron!

I created a simple AppleScript and saved it as an app called "Hello.app" on my desktop. With the command in the Terminal:
/usr/bin/open /Users/adam/Desktop/Hello.app

It runs. To automate this, you need to save it to your cron

If you open up a Terminal, type:
touch ~/mycrontab
open /Applications/TextEdit.app ~/mycrontab


Once in this file, you'll need a line that looks something like this:
0 * * * * /usr/bin/open /Users/adam/Desktop/Hello.app

Basically this tells cron to run this file once an hour, on the hour. You can play with the options a little bit
* * * * * /usr/bin/open /Users/adam/Desktop/Hello.app #Every minute
*/2 * * * * /usr/bin/open /Users/adam/Desktop/Hello.app #Every two minutes
0 15,22 * * * /usr/bin/open /Users/adam/Desktop/Hello.app #3pm and 10 pm, on the hour
0 * * * sun,thu /usr/bin/open /Users/adam/Desktop/Hello.app #Every Sunday and Thursday, on the hour

Basically, once you find the frequency you want, save the file. Then, back in the terminal:

crontab ~/mycrontab

This installs the file you just created.

 

[dlydiamg]

Thanks for the reply but I don't think that's what I need. I will need to use this on a server also, not locally.

dlydiamg

 

[ianray]

Hi, I was curious -- so I did this:

1. New Folder "dropee" on desktop
2. Open Automator, New Folder Action
3. Drag "dropee" to the 'Folder Action receives files and folders added to' folder
4. Add action 'Rename Finder Items'
5. Select 'Replace Text' from the drop-down box
6. Find: XXX, Replace: YYY
7. Save
8. Drag files named oneXXX.txt, XXXtwo.txt, thrXXXee.txt, and four.txt to dropee folder

The result was that oneXXX.txt and XXXtwo.txt were correctly transformed to oneYYY.txt and YYYtwo.txt, but thrXXXee.txt was not changed.

Is this the problem that you are having?