Copying Finder items into same folder as Action

I want an Action that can copy Finder items directly into the same folder the Action resides in, i.e. without specifying where or asking the user where.
Is this possible? All I've been able to create so far is an Action whereby I need to specify the folder or get the user to specify it.

OK, I am now going to try to teach you to fish
It might be a little bit easier to visualize if you think of the values passed along in your workflow as a stack of playing cards. Some actions do something with the cards and then just pass them on, some take all of the cards, and others add cards to the stack. The Set Value of Variable action takes the current stack of cards (the results of any previous action(s)), assigns it to a variable that is named whatever you want to name it, and passes the stack on to the next action. The Get Value of Variable gets the value of one of your previously named variables and adds it to the stack. You can also use a previously named variable in input fields of various actions, such as locations to copy to. I'm not sure why you are getting the path to the desktop (unless that is where your workflow application is located), but here are some additional comments for my previously posted workflow:
1) Run Applescript (with the Applescript posted earlier)
- if your workflow has been saved as an application, the results of this action will be a path to the folder that it is in (if not, the path will be to where the Automator application is, which isn't what you want)
2) Set Value of Variable
- this action will take that path, assign it to a variable with your specified name, and pass it on
3) New Folder
- this action makes a folder with the specified name in the specified location - you can drag variables into these fields, in which case their current values are what will be used
- the result of this action is a new folder, and the path to the folder is added to the current stack of cards (if any) and passed on to the next action
- since we just want the path to the new folder (and none of the previous cards), first we throw away any cards we may have (with the "ignore input" option) so that our results don't get mixed up.
4) Set Value of Variable
- same as (2) above, except that the value is now the path to the folder that got made in the previous action (3)
5) Ask for Finder Items (Type: files, Allow Multiple Selection)
- the results of this action will be whatever items you selected, and of course, they will be added to our current stack of cards unless we throw them away first with the "ignore input" option
6) Copy Finder Items
- this will copy Finder items (the ones we selected in the previous action) to the location that is specified - you can drag a variable into the To: field, in which case it's current value is what will be used.
- the result of this action will be the paths to the items that were just copied, but since this is the end of the workflow it doesn't matter
You can use the View Results action to see what the current stack of cards is, so you can see if what is going in and coming out of your actions is what you expect, and tweak accordingly.

Similar Messages

Maximum file/folder size for Copy Finder Items?

As I mentioned in another recent post, I used Automator a while back to set up a workflow that would Get Finder Items and then Copy Finder Items. Set it up as a iCal plugin. Worked fine for a long time, but I just checked and saw that the largest of the three folders (1.8 GB) was not being completely copied. The other two folders, much smaller (20 MB or so) were fine, but several folders within that large 1.8 GB folder were being skipped. I opened the workflow, and ran it, and it came up with an error that just told me to check the workflow. Is there a maximum size on this type of workflow? Seemed to work fine before . . .

The *Copy Finder Items* action will not make duplicate copies. If you want multiple copies of the same item, you will need to rename or duplicate the item before copying, since the copy action doesn't have an option to rename, and the duplicate action doesn't duplicate to a different location.

Automator 2.2 "Copy Finder Items" Action Error

Hello all,
When I try to create an Automator workflow that finds a type of file (pdf) in a nested folder structure and copies those files to another folder - essentially extracting the pdfs from their nested folders - I get an error message.
1) I use the "find Finder items" action. I specify the top-level folder and set the kind to "document"
2) It returns 56 items
3) I use "copy Finder items" action and specify a new folder
4) The copy action fails stating that a given file "couldn't be saved in the folder". It does not always error-out on the same file. Changing or creating a new folder doesn't help.
I have tried this under two user accounts with the same result. I have tried deleting preferences. The same error results.
Any ideas?
I am running 10.7.1 on a 15" MacBook Pro, early 2011.

I was having the same issue.
I found another solution: instead of copying files, you could move files.
1) Duplicate your original folder (unless you want to move/extract your files entirely to the new folder) (right click the folder and select duplicate)
2) Create a new folder as the destiny folder
3) Open automator and use the following actions (in order) on the workflow
- Find Finder Itens (browse to your source folder; select "any"; select "extension"; select "end with"; type "pdf") (you can do the same thing with the actions "get specified finder items" combined with "filter finder items")
- Get Folder Contents (and mark repeat for each subfolder found) (use this action if you have subfolders)
- Move Finder Itens (browse to your destination folder, that you created previously)
Now you can delete the duplicated folder.

IMac: I try to save a file and get 'the action "Copy Finder Items" encountered an error. Check the action's properties and try running the workflow again.'

I keep on running into this when I try to save a download file. Any help would be appreciated.
'The action "Copy Finder Items" encountered an error. Check the action's properties and try running the workflow again.'
I tried clicking the button to change the save but that has no effect.

Hi All,
I am having same issue too. Can anyone you advise? Thank you.

Copy Finder Items - how to generic for multiple user home directories?

I am creating an Automator workflow to allow my networked users to be able to copy certain files from a central location to their local home directory and overwriting their local copy. How to I make the destination of the Copy Finder Item to be generic home directory (something in the like of "~/Document/MegaSeg User Data/MegaSeg Database" instead of a fixed user home directory)?

Hi
It may be easier with an appleScript (which you could incorporate into an Automator action if you wanted).
--start script
set the_file to -- path to the file you want to copy goes here
set docs_folder to path to documents folder from user domain
tell application "Finder"
set target_folder to folder "MegaSeg Database" of folder "MegaSeg User Data" of docs_folder
duplicate the_file to target_folder with replacing
end tell
-- end script
This will replace existing files of the same name in the target folder. Hope it helps.

Copy Finder Items

I have a workflow that is reading images names & pathways from a text file, and copying the images in the text file into another folder. My problem is coming with the "Copy Finder Items" action. If I have the same image that I want copied into the folder, it will only copy it once. Actually, when I run the workflow, all of the images appear in the results section of the copy finder items. However, any duplicate images are not actually in the folder that it is copied to. Is there any way to correct for this, so that I can copy an image into a folder more than one time?
Thanks

The *Copy Finder Items* action will not make duplicate copies. If you want multiple copies of the same item, you will need to rename or duplicate the item before copying, since the copy action doesn't have an option to rename, and the duplicate action doesn't duplicate to a different location.

Automator: Copy Finder Items Question

Hola,
Quick question about the Copy Finder Items action in automator: the "replace existing files" option, how is sameness determined? In other words, according to what criteria does Automator determine that two files are the same, and so eligible for replacement in the destination folder when that option is chosen? For example, would file Mydog.doc, modified 10/14/05, 230k be viewed as the same thing as Mydog.doc., modifided 2/21/06, 150k?
Cheers,
stu

As far as the Finder is concerned, the comparison is based on file name only.
It doesn't care about file size or modification date. If the name is the same the existing file will be replaced.

Can't use "Copy Finder Items" after "Run Workflow"

Create a simple Automator workflow:
Set just 1 action "Create Thumbnail Images" and save it. I called it "wf1.workflow".
Now create the second workflow with 3 actions:
"Get Specified Finder Items" action (choose an image file here).
->
"Run Workflow" action (specify "wf1.workflow" as a workflow, select "Return workflow results", check "Wait for workflow to finish").
->
"Copy Finder Items" (specify any location)
Now run the workflow. Everytime I get an error.
The log:
Get Specified Finder Items completed;
Run Workflow (wf1) completed;
Copy Finder Items failed
* -[NSAppleEventDescriptor count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x113185d0
The same workflow works fine in Tiger, so I think there is a bug in Leopard Automator.
Am I right? Is there any workaround?

I can confirm I got the same results for the workflow, just don't know why as of yet. And then I somehow got it to work.
I checked the results for each action and they didn't seem unusual. The results of "Get Specified Finder Items" is a single parenthesized text string representing the file's path. The results of "Copy Finder Items" is an alias, but that should be okay.
So, deleted the thumbnail from the first run, and then ran the workflow again. It got stuck on "Run Workflow" and hung for a while. So I stopped it and removed "Run Workflow", and then added it in again. Presto! It worked, sort of. It didn't copy the thumbnail, instead it copied the original file. I'd forgotten to reset it to "Return workflow results". So, it seems to be something to do with returning the workflow results instead of the action input.
I'm going to do some more testing.

Automator Copy Finder Items - file couldn't be saved error

I have a simple automator sequence that suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason. Copy Finder Items has started returning an error "the file xxx couldn't be saved to the folder yyy" Happens for different files and folders. Can't see anythng that's changed. Any ideas?

I'm currently having the same issue, and have had it with mulitple automator scripts on multiple computers, but it's not fixing itseltf. Anyone know what this error could be?
I've noticed that I get the above error most often after getting and then correcting permissions errors in the same workflow. Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks!

Help on Copy Finder Items

This is the problem:
I have a Toshiba USB Flashdisk formatted with a Windows format (so that both Mac and PC can read/write it).
I have a folder inside Documents where I want to backup to my flashdisk regularily (i'll plug in the drive, and then run the automator workflow).
It worked well when I first made this, but some time ago, it won't copy ALL the files. It'll only copy some of the files/folders which makes it fustrating.
Please Advice.
Thanks

I've also found that after an upgrade to Lion an Automator script I've been using to back up my Entourage 2008 identity to a USB drive no longer works, failing with a report that Copy Finder Items couldn't copy to the destination (which it had been happy doing under Snow Leopard).
I had saved the workflow as an application in the Utilities folder. First of all I also discovered that the Utilities folder permissions had been set differently, with "system" as the owner and as the only account with Read & Write permissions. I had to change the folder permissions and then having opened the "application" in Automator had to unlock it there too.
I've tried changing the destination of the copy to local locations like my account's Desktop or Downloads folders but still the script fails with a "Copy Finder Items can't copy ... to this destination" message.
The script is essentially the one described here:
http://www.officeformachelp.com/2009/04/quit_all_microsoft_applications_before_b acking_up/
but set up as an application rather than an iCal repeating event. Once I've quit all the Microsoft applications (by running the first part of the script), Finder allows me to drag the Entourage "Main Identity" folder to the folder on the USB drive to make a copy so at that level the permissions (and disk space) are ok.
Any suggestions welcome!

Help with what should be an easy workflow.. copy finder item

Hello,
I am writing a workflow to backup a folder to an external hard drive. The flow first copies the folder to the desktop, then re-names it with the date and then should be copying it to an external fire-wire hard drive.
The problem is that the "copy finder item" does not work - only the last sub-folder in the folder actually gets copied. I can't figure out what the problem is. This seems to affect both the copy to the desktop and then the subsequent copy to the firewire drive. Puzzlingly, it sometimes seems to work and copy the whole folder!
Any advice?
Jonathan

Well, I don't know what's causing your problem, but let me suggest an optimization. Unless you have a specific reason to want this, there's absolutely no reason to copy the folder twice. Right now, you're copying to the desktop, renaming the folder, then copying to the external drive. Presumably, you must at some point delete the copy on the desktop. Copying twice means the backup will be half as fast as it could be. It also introduces extra room for errors by increasing the complexity of the task.
Instead, copy the folder to the destination on the external drive, then rename it once it's there. Perhaps, if you're lucky, in making this change, your problem will solve itself.

Files corrupted by Copy finder items

I made a simple Automator workflow droplet. When a (PDF) file is dropped onto it, it copies it to the desktop, does a rename step, then copies it to another folder on the server. Today, I've been having a problem with the pdf files getting corrupted by the action (they open, but parts of the image are messed up). Has anyone else run into this problem?

Hi
It may be easier with an appleScript (which you could incorporate into an Automator action if you wanted).
--start script
set the_file to -- path to the file you want to copy goes here
set docs_folder to path to documents folder from user domain
tell application "Finder"
set target_folder to folder "MegaSeg Database" of folder "MegaSeg User Data" of docs_folder
duplicate the_file to target_folder with replacing
end tell
-- end script
This will replace existing files of the same name in the target folder. Hope it helps.

"Find Finder Items" returns same file twice

Hey y'all,
I'm trying to jerry-rig a photobooth for my wedding. I'm using automator to grab 3 stills from a webcam, and place them all in a folder. When I use "Find Finder Items" to send these images to an action that will rotate them, it finds one of the images twice. That is, the results for "Find Finder Items - where: path whose: name contains 'snap' " will return pictures/path/snap3.tiff, pictures/path/snap1.tiff, pictures/path/snap2.tiff, pictures/path/snap3.tiff. This means that when I send these results to my Rotate 90 Degrees action, Snap3 is rotated 180, and when I send them all into a PDF, I get snap3 twice.
This also happens when I "Find Finder Items" and just look for all the .tiff files in /path, and when use "Get Folder Contents" on /path.
Background: Running 10.5.8 Leopard on a PPC Mac mini. Fairly new to the world of Mac, so I may be missing something obvious.
I've been searching for answers for a day or two now, and haven't come across this sort of issue; I apologize if this is old hat, but I really have made a goodfaith attempt to search these and other forums.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Edited to add: The folder only contains the 3 .tiff files, and the PDF I'm trying to dump them into. I thought maybe I was somehow creating a 4th identical file, but it's not the case.

Hello & a warm welcome!
no idea what is happening, other than Apple Software is usually the worst to accomplish thing the way YOU want to.
GraphicConverter has a powerful Browse Folder function, & many tools for manipulation, & you can keep your Pics wherever you want...
http://www.lemkesoft.com/

Searching for multiple files to put into same folder

Hello,
I have a group of folders each containing low resolution images. I would like to create a group of new folders with the exact folder organization with the exact files in each folder but the folders should contain the high resolution images. Currently the high resolution files are all mixed together in a few folders on my external hard drive.
I'd like to simply open the low-resolution folders, do a select-All, and somehow use those file names in a mass search of the high res folders, but I'm not sure if it's possible or how to do it.
I am using OS 10.4.11
Any help would be appreciated.
Message was edited by: ccumminskc

O.K. I think i figured out a backdoor way to do this. I'm open to easier methods.
This is 500 or so files I'm trying to organize so doing each one by one was not going to be good for my sanity.
In the Finder I selected all the files in that low res image folder who's organization and contents I wanted to mimic in the new high res folder. I control clicked and did the "Copy All" item on the dialog.
From there, I opened TextEdit, pasted the file names to a new text document. The list is a descending list with each file name separated by a line break (or "carriage return" they used to call them.) I carefully moused to the beginning of one file name and selected the space before the first letter of the file name and selected the empty space until the last letter of the previous file name. It should be nothing but blank space selected. I copied that, clicked "Find" on the TextEdit menu. I selected the Find space, put my cursor in there and pasted into the space. In the "Replace" space I type " or " and clicked "Replace All."
This prepared a lengthy text section featuring all of the file names ready to be entered into a Boolean search. I used EasyFind from www.devon-technologies.com to do a boolean search of the high-resolution folders and Bingo, there they are ready to be put into their new home.
Whew.... if anyone cares.... or has an easier method I am all ears.

Find item id inside folder

Hi,
How do I find item id inside one folder in content area is there a view ?

Docster wrote:
Hi All,
I'm a relative newbie to Apex. I'm trying to access a page in my app.
I have 4 main pages.
Widgets - primary page
Widget References - child page
Widget Contacts - child page
Widget Categories - child page
Each page alone works fine. From my Widgets page, I can access the Widget References page fine.
When I try to access the other two child pages, I get this error:
ERR-1002 Unable to find item ID for item " P17_WIDGET_TITLE_H" in application "12345".The error message shows that it's trying to find an item with a leading space: " P17_WIDGET_TITLE_H".
Unexpected error, unable to find item name at application or page level.
Technical Info (only visible for developers)
is_internal_error: true
apex_error_code: WWV_FLOW.FIND_ITEM_ID_ERR
error_backtrace:
----- PL/SQL Call Stack -----
object line object
handle number name
0x35b404e98 717 package body APEX_040100.WWV_FLOW_ERROR
0x35b404e98 1064 package body APEX_040100.WWV_FLOW_ERROR
0x358dd9de0 760 package body APEX_040100.WWV_FLOW
0x358dd9de0 4830 package body APEX_040100.WWV_FLOW
0x358dd9de0 7201 package body APEX_040100.WWV_FLOW
0x358dfd130 249 procedure APEX_040100.F
0x35ae40ce8 33 anonymous block
When I run the query:
select * from apex_application_page_items
where application_id = 12345
and page_id = 17
and item_name = 'P17_WIDGET_TITLE_H'
I get an ID.No leading space: 'P17_WIDGET_TITLE_H'
I have deleted the item and recreated it with every letter of the alphabet and still get the same error.
Oh, and the item is clearly visible on the page.
Do I have a poltergeist?No, it looks like you have a space in your links that shouldn't be there. You don't say how the pages are linked, but however they are, remove excess spaces from them.

Copying Finder items into same folder as Action

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for