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!

Similar Messages

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Help with copy list item workflow in SPD 2013

Hello
i just can't find anywhere to help me on the web with workflows, I am very new to this.
I have 2 custom lists.
First list, 3 columns:
'date received' (date)
'student name' (text field)
'hearing' (yes/no)
When a new item is added, I enter text for student name and the date. Then I set 'hearing' to yes or no.
If yes, I would like a workflow to copy the student name for to the second list.
In the second list, I have 2 columns (so far):
'student name' (text field)
'student number' (text field)
I just have no idea where to start to do this. Could someone please help?
Thanks.
Mel

Hi ,
If you mean that you don't want to create duplicate items in list2 when you edit the item in list1 mutiple time, you can try adding another "if" condition contained within your above "if" block to determin if the current
item "student name" equals to "student name" from list2, if yes then update the that item in list2, if no, then crate a new item in list2.
Thanks
Daniel Yang
TechNet Community Support

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.

Javascript help to copy selected items from one list to another list on same site

Hello,
So I have a request that I am not sure how to handle. I have created a page with a list view webpart that displays all the items from one list.
The user is then supposed to select off multiple list items and click on a button (most likely a ribbon button) that will take the selected items and copy them to another list on the same SharePoint site.
I would like to do this with JavaScript, but have only found an example that copies library items to another library.

Hi KansaiKel,
According to your description, my understanding is that you want to copy selected list items to another list.
I suggest you can use JavaScript Client Object Model to achieve it.
Here is a code snippet for your reference:
<script type="text/javascript">
var context = SP.ClientContext.get_current();
var siteUrl = 'http://sp2013sps/sites/test';
var clientContext = new SP.ClientContext(siteUrl);
var web = context.get_web();
context.load(web);
var sourceId = SP.ListOperation.Selection.getSelectedList();
var source = web.get_lists().getById(sourceId);
var oList = context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle('Copy');
context.load(oList);
var selectedItems = SP.ListOperation.Selection.getSelectedItems(context);
alert('debut');
for(var i in selectedItems)
var currentItem = source.getItemById(selectedItems[i].id);
context.load(currentItem);
context.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this,test),Function.createDelegate(this,error));
function test(sender, args){
var itemCreateInfo = new SP.ListItemCreationInformation();
var oListItem = oList.addItem(itemCreateInfo);
oListItem.set_item('Title', currentItem.get_item('Title'));
oListItem.update();
oList.update();
alert('done');
function error(sender, args){ alert('error');}""
</script>
Here is a detailed article for your reference:
Complete basic operations using JavaScript library code in SharePoint
Best Regards
Forum Support
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact
[email protected]
Zhengyu Guo
TechNet Community Support

Filter finder Items... broken? (also request to help streamline script)

Let me begin by saying that I've done the SAME THING for a long time with this Automator script, and it's worked flawlessly. I recently added some now automator actions (and later deleted them) thinking they were the culprit of why my "filter finder items" was showing no results, but I'm not sure at all at this point.
Here's the script (that has been working fine until at least the 7th):
It's long, so bear with me (I use this script to install custom Sims2 content when I download it:
("Get Specified Folder" uses the "Get specified finder items" action, I just didn't want to type that every time).
New Folder: Recent (in my downloads folder)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains .package)
Copy Finder items (to Recent)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains Sims2Pack)
Move finder itmes (to my core download folder (they're generally in subfolders after downloading, as are the .package files)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains Sims2Pack)
Copy finder items (to Recent)
Get Specified Folder: Recent
Create Archive (on desktop named Sims2)
Rename (add date to end of file name)
Rename (add time to end of file name)
Get Specified Folder: Recent
Move to trash
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains .package)
Move finder items (to Sims2 Downloads folder, which installs the custom content, replacing any repeats)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents
Filter finder items (name contains Sims2Pack)
Move Finder items (Sims 2 Packs folder within the downloads folder... these items must be installed into the game by double-clicking on them.)
Get Specified folder: Desktop
Get folder contents
Filter finder items (name contains Sims2)
Move Finder items (To Backup)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains MTS (most of the containing download folders (after they've been expanded by another automator script, have this at the beginning of the folder name due to where I commonly download my custom content)
Move to trash
And that concludes the script. I know it could probably be streamlined (another reason I'm posting the whole thing) but it worked until very recently, and I don't know what could cause it to no longer report results after filtering within the subfolders while within the main folder works fine.
To clarify, it's recently been simply deleting the MTS folders and creating a "Recent" folder and archiving it but it's empty. So the script is not filtering for the Sims2Pack data nor the .package data as it used to.
I haven't modified the script, and I've deleted all actions that I downloaded recently (backed them up in case they're not the culprit). Also ran disk permission repair but nothing was repaired in regards to Automator.
Thanks.
iMac Intel Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Here is an update to the script, however filter continue to not work as it once did.
New Folder: Recent (in my downloads folder)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains .package)
Copy Finder items (to Recent)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains Sims2Pack)
Move finder itmes (to my core download folder (they're generally in subfolders after downloading, as are the .package files)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains Sims2Pack)
Copy finder items (to Recent)
Get Specified Folder: Recent
Create Archive (on in "to backup" named Sims2)
Rename (add date to end of file name)
Rename (add time to end of file name)
Get Specified Folder: Recent
Move to trash
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains .package)
Move finder items (to Sims2 Downloads folder, which installs the custom content, replacing any repeats)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents
Filter finder items (name contains Sims2Pack)
Move Finder items (Sims 2 Packs folder within the downloads folder... these items must be installed into the game by double-clicking on them.)
Get Specified Folder: my downloads folder
Get folder contents (repeat for each subfolder found)
Filter finder items (name contains MTS (most of the containing download folders (after they've been expanded by another automator script, have this at the beginning of the folder name due to where I commonly download my custom content)
Move to trash
I removed the step where it was saving it to the desktop. If the filters ever work again, this should therefore go faster than before.

Help on Copy Finder Items

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for