Transfer Spotlight Comments?

Is there a way I can use Automator to transfer all of my photo archive's Spotlight Comments to IPTC or EXIF comment or description boxes?

I guess not...

Similar Messages

How to copy a files name and spotlight comments to a text file for an entire folder

I have movie covers saved as a jpeg for every movie my family and I own. There is about 700 and they each have a comment of the main actors, release dates, and descriptions. This makes it easy to find what to watch. I want my parents to have all of this info but they have a windows laptop so the comments don't transfer with the file and can't be searched like you can on a mac. Is there an applescript, automator, program I can download, or program code supported in xcode that will do at least one of the following things?
1)Take the name of the picture file and spotlight comment, copy and paste it into a text document like word that looks like this...
File Name1- Spotlight Comment for file 1
File Name 2- Spotlight Comment for file 2
. for all 700 files in a folder
2) It would be equally helpful if there was something that would take the name of the picture file and spotlight comment, copy and paste it to a movie file's comments with the same name but obviously has different extention. For an example
In a Pictures folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.jpeg       Comment: (2008) Genre: Action...             <- copy comment
In a Movie Folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.m4v       Comment:                                               <- paste
and do this for all 700 files
3) Is there a free photo program that works on mac and windows that I can put all my movie pictures in and have a description like I did with the comments? It would also need a place that to search the description for keywords. So Basically an itunes for pictures that works on both mac and windows. If so I still need a way to get the spotlight comments to the description.
4) I feel like this would make things more difficult, but if not I can put all of the .m4v files in itunes so instead of pasting all the comments back into a file in finder paste them in a description in itunes
5) At the very least a code that I can run one by one for every file that will paste the comments into the same document
Note: When I say spotlight comments I mean the comment box that is available when you click on get info of a file. The pictures are in the pictures section of finder in a folder called Movie Pictures. The movie files are on an external hard-drive in a file called Movies. Also I am slightly familiar with applescript and automater in that I have used both to create keyboard shortcuts and simple voice commands. I have programmed in c++ and C too. So If you give me a code for applescript I do know what to do with it.
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read all of this and extra thanks to anyone who tries to help.

Clendenen02 wrote:
2) It would be equally helpful if there was something that would take the name of the picture file and spotlight comment, copy and paste it to a movie file's comments with the same name but obviously has different extention. For an example
In a Pictures folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.jpeg       Comment: (2008) Genre: Action...             <- copy comment
In a Movie Folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.m4v       Comment:                                               <- paste
and do this for all 700 files
This Bash script will do it.
Edit "PicDir" and "MovDir" to the location of your Folders
(Note: The comment is written to the m4v file using xattr, so the Spotlight comment field appears blank in Finder, but the comment metadata is still indexed by Spotlight (If you add a Spotlight comment from Finder, it is stored both as an extended attribute and in a .DS_Store file)
#!/bin/bash
PicDir=$HOME/Desktop/Pictures
MovDir=$HOME/Desktop/Movies
for f in $PicDir/*
do
     if [ ! -d "$f" -a "${f##*.}" == "jpeg" ]; then
          comment=$(mdls -raw -name kMDItemFinderComment "$f")
          if [[ $comment != "(null)" ]]; then
               picname=${f##*/}
               movname=${picname%.*}.m4v
               if [ -e "$MovDir"/$movname ]; then
                     xattr -w com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment "\"$comment\"" "$MovDir"/$movname
               fi
          fi
     fi
done

Transferring spotlight comments to iPhoto

I've got several hundered scanned photos on a hard drive with spotlight comments attached.
Is there any way to transfer those spotlight comments into iPhoto's comment field when I import the files into iPhoto, or will I have to type them all in manually?
If there isn't a way to do it through iPhoto, it seems like the kind of task that an Automator script could be written to handle, but I'm not very familiar with that.

Chip:
Unless you can find an Applescript that will do the job you'll probably have to enter them manually. Automator does not have any actions that I could find that could do the job. But then, I'm not overly proficient with Automator.
You might ask in the Applescript forum.
Do you Twango?

Spotlight comment via command line?

Hi all
Anyone knows whether it is possible to add a spotlight comment to a file/folder with a shell command? And if it is, what this command is? I tried GetFileInfo to at least read a spotlight comment, but it didn't show it.
Tina

"Finder" comments aren't very reliable so it probably is best to avoid them for anything important if possible. They aren't actually a part of the file, and in the case of "OS X", they are stored in the ".DS_Store" files of the folder in which the file resides. The ".DS_Store" files aren't always updated in a timely manner and if anything disrupts the association between the file and the ".DS_Store" file containing that file's comments, the comment may be lost. For example, most command line methods of copying or moving files will not transfer the "comment" unless the whole folder is processed together. There is even some ambiguity, where moving a file with 'mv' updates the Spotlight database so that it appears as if the comment moved along with the file, when in fact it hasn't.
Anyway, regarding the original question, the only way I know of to add a comment via the command line is indirectly - i.e. using 'osascript' to get AppleScript to tell the "Finder" to do it. This obviously isn't ideal since a user with sufficient privileges to modify the ".DS_Store" file associated with the item has to be logged in and the "Finder" has to be running. eg.<pre>
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to set comment of (choose file) to "blah"'</pre>

How to copy a files spotlight comments for an entire folder and place them in a different file with that same name

I have the same question in a different discussion but I already marked it as solved because one of the questions was answered. Here's the linke to the other discussion if your interested https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5970421
I have movie covers saved as a jpeg for every movie my family and I own. There is about 700 and they each have a comment of the main actors, release dates, and descriptions. This makes it easy to find what to watch.Is there an applescript, automator, program I can download, or program code supported in xcode that will do the following set of inscructions?
Take the name of the picture file and spotlight comment, copy and paste it to a movie file's comments to a file with the same name but obviously has different extention. For an example
In a Pictures folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.jpeg       Comment: (2008) Genre: Action...             <- copy comment
In a Movie Folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.m4v       Comment:                                               <- paste
and do this for all 700 files

Clendenen02 wrote:
where should I run the code? in the terminal, or an applescript, or should put it in xcode and run it from there or the terminal.
What MrHoffman said.
But if it's easier, you can wrap it in Automator and have Automator ask for the Folders: (Test on a sample of your files before running on all 700 files)
(do you really own 700 movies??)
The Workflow is:
Put this in the Run Shell Script Action (and pass input as arguments":
PicDir=$1
MovDir=$2
for f in $PicDir/*
do
     if [ ! -d "$f" -a "${f##*.}" = "jpeg" ]; then
          comment=$(mdls -raw -name kMDItemFinderComment "$f")
          if [[ $comment != "(null)" ]]; then
               picname=${f##*/}
               movname=${picname%.*}.m4v
               if [[ -e "$MovDir"/$movname ]]; then
osascript <<-EOF
tell application "Finder"
set comment of file (POSIX file "$MovDir/$movname") to "$comment"
end tell
EOF
               fi
          fi
     fi
done
(BTW, I know that this is a bit of sloppy scripting (wraping an osascript in a Bash Script wrapped in Automator, but it does what you need)

Importing Spotlight Comments

Hi Everyone,
I have around 700 historic photos that have been digitized. All the photo details (dates, etc.) were entered into the Spotlight Comments field under Get Info. Unfortunately, none of the comments appear when I open the photos in Adobe Bridge CS4. I will now start using Bridge to add the metadata tags. However, is there an easy solution (perhaps an Automator script) to export the Spotlight Comments and use them in Bridge? I really don't want to retype the information, and I would be extremely grateful for any advice.
Thank you,
Brian

You most probably require the help of script to do this. Better to ask your Question in that forum. Your Spotlight Comments belong to Finder both AppleScript & Shell can get access to these not too sure about JavaScript. JavaScript would be required to add this info to the correct files.

Automator for Exporting Spotlight Comments?

Hello,
I have around 700 historic photos that have been digitized. All the photo details (dates, etc.) were entered into the Spotlight Comments field under Get Info. Unfortunately, none of the comments appear when I open the photos in Adobe Bridge CS4. Is there an easy solution (perhaps an Automator script) to export the Spotlight Comments and use them elsewhere?
Thank you,
Brian

Brian
If I read you right, what you are trying to do is grab Finder metadata and convert it to photo metadata. Specifically, convert spotlight comments to Exif and IPTC - which is what a Photo app will need.
You can't do this with Automator. The Automator dictionary has ways to set Spotlight Comments but I can see no way to get them. Further the dictionary has the ability to write to the IPTC data only of images in Aperture, not in the Finder or iPhoto.
You might do better with that question on the Automator forum here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1261
Have you tried the Applescript that was suggested when you posted the query last?
As your target are file managed by Bridge, give the Adobe forums a go too.
However, you may run into another issue here and that is that most scanners (as I presume this is how the photos were digitised) do not create Exif and IPTC data for scanned images. It may not be possible to do what you want to do.
Regards
TD

Is it possible to export Spotlight Comments? Please help.

Hello,
I have around 700 historic photos that have been digitized. All the photo details (dates, etc.) were entered into the Spotlight Comments field under Get Info. Unfortunately, none of the comments appear when I open the photos in Adobe Bridge CS4. Is there an easy solution to export the Spotlight Comments and use them elsewhere?
Thank you,
Brian

I found this AppleScript on Google. I cannot vouch for it: I have never tried it and it is several years old. It appears to use GraphicConverter. But you can experiment with it, and see if it works for you.
[http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-76368.html]

Problem with add Spotlight Comments script.

Hello,
I am trying to add Spotlight Comments to some files using Automator. I have made an very simple script in Automator that add Spotlight Comments to the files that I have selected in Finder. I save this script as an app and it work great. I also save the same script but not as an app but as a service. The problem here is that when I run the service it add the same Spotlight Comment two times. For example, if I add "@Webshots" with the app the Spotlight Comments of the files is "@Webshots" but when I do it with the service the Spotlight Comments of the files is "@Webshots" "@Webshots". Can anybody help me with this? I will appreciate it a lot any help that you could give me. Thanks

I suspect your workflow includes 'get select finder items' as the first action. get rid of it. it's redundant in a service that accepts files and folder in finder. that's why everything happens twice.

"Spotlight Comments" in Finder Get Info window doesn't accept Clipboard contents

I wanted to paste caption and credit info from a NASA video download into the file's Spotlight Comments in the Get Info window. Done it in the past no problemo. Today it doesn't work.
Tried pasting the copied web page content to TextEdit and converting to plain text, copy again, paste still a no-go. Tried typing in the Spotlight Comments window, that works ok. Looked at the contents of the Clipboard and the text appears there, labeled either as rtf or text depending on where the text was pasted from (web or TextEdit).
Tried copying a couple of letters from the converted text, and they pasted ok into Spotlight Comments.
Suggestions to make the Clipboard contents paste?
Thanks.

On further inspection, it appears that the contents of the old Comments field are carried forward into the Spotlight Comments field.

Spotlight/Finder only searching "new" spotlight comments not old ones

I have a bunch of files on my external hard drive that I had taken several hours to "tag" with spotlight comments a few months back. I tagged them so I could quickly find them in Finder or Spotlight by different key words and not just file names or their contents (folders wouldn't work because the keywords overlapped many of the files. Plus folders are slow). It worked beautifully. Until I stopped adding tags for those 4 months until now.
I hadn't been using my comments at all in the past couple of months, but i had some files that I hadn't tagged so I decided to take the time to tag all the new ones. While testing to see if the comments worked, I noticed an extreme shortage of results, compared to the results i had for the same key words 4 months ago. I noticed that only the newly tagged files were showing up. I immediately checked the old files to see if the comments were still there and there they were. I restarted my MacBook Pro, thinking that maybe it was because I hadn't done so in the past few days. I noticed the little dot in the lens of they eyeglass and thought "oh boy! it'll reindex everything!" but it only indexed "new" files of course.
So my question is: "*How did this happen?*" But more importantly: "*+How can I fix it?+*"
I've thought that forcing spotlight to reindex my entire external hard drive would do the trick, but I cannot find any means to achieve that goal. Plus, I would rather just be able to index the files within one folder as I wouldn't have to wait an entire day of sluggish performance for that. Any ideas?

Let me start with the "easy" question first: the .DS_Store files are where "Finder information" is stored. Windows users find these things a pain in neck, and usually insist they be deleted. Most of time this isn't a problem, the Mac users just get annoyed when their folder doesn't open the way it was when last closed--the principle information stored there is the view the folder was told to keep, the size of the icons and their arrangement, and so on. Every time you open a folder a .DS_Store file created if one does not already exist, and if one does the file will be updated if you change your settings for the folder, for instance switch it to List view, tell it to always open in List view, with columns for Date Modified, Size, but not Kind or Date Created. And it also keeps the information entered in Spotlight Comments. Just how Finder preserves this information if a file is moved, in Mac OS, to another folder, I don't know. But it does.
What we REALLY need is a nice little program to write to the metadata of the file. For instance, Spotlight will index keywords, which are stored in the file itself, as part of the file's metadata. I mainly work with graphics, and Photoshop allows you to add keywords to the file's metadata. Apple's iPhoto and Aperture will also add keywords, but they are not written to a file's metadata until you export them. PDFs can also have keywords assigned, you can even do it with Preview. Text documents can also have keywords added using some (most?) text editors, including TextEdit (provided the file is in RTF format). The nice thing about keyword metadata is that it goes with the file, and be accessed in any OS that allows a metadata search.
Unfortunately I don't know of any program that would allow you to select a batch of miscellaneous files and add the same keyword to all of them. It would certainly be handy though.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Can't add/edit Spotlight Comments in Apple default apps

I can't add text to the Spotlight Comments field (via Get Info) in Apple's apps installed by default. The computer just beeps when I try to type something. However, I have no such problem with 3rd party apps.
Is this a bug or is there something I have to do to allow Spotlight Comments?
The permissions on all Apple apps installed by Snow Leopard are "system: "Read & Write," "wheel: Read only," and "everyone: Read only."
Thanks.
Message was edited by: Gunny Sack

Someone else noted that and I tried a few and couldn't edit them, even after giving myself write permissions. It might be tied to some form of code signing/protection.

Raw Search Terms for "Spotlight Comment" and "Locked" Status

Is it possible to do a raw search for a specific Spotlight Comment. I know the option exists in the Other… dialog box, but I need to find files that do not contain comments which is not choice.
Also, is there any way to find only files that are unlocked?

If you go to Others and select Raw Query you can use it find items with a specific comment, and items without any comment. For example, if you have the comment "testme" in the Spotlight field you would paste this into the Raw Query field:
kMDItemFinderComment == "testme"
and all files with that comment would be found. To find files in a folder that contain NO comment at all, you would use this:
kMDItemFinderComment != "*"
Be warned though: when I tried this on a folder with only 5 items in it, 4 with comments and one without. it worked, returning the lone uncommented file, but it took an amazingly long time to do so (perhaps a minute, while the search for "testme" was instantaneous).
The "File readable" and "File writeable" functions shown in Others, which presumably are what one would use to find locked files, simply do not work. This is not surprising since the information about whether a file is locked or not does not in fact appear in a file's metadata. I guess that will be a future addition. You can use find in Terminal to search for files that are locked/unlocked. Let me know if you really want to do this.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Carriage returns in Spotlight Comments - tip

Because I could paste returns into the Spotlight comment window, I figured there was a way to place carriage returns into the window [without copying a return from TextEdit].
ctrl-return works on my PowerBook
Mac OS X (10.4.3) Titanium PowerBook (15")

The email is formatted poorly by the sender.
The screen width for a PC is min 640x480, which is large enough to display the email with the extar carriage returns on every line.
The Blackberry has a much smaller resolution, even with smaller text (which you could try but I wouldn't count on).
The BB removes extra CR/LF's (ie if you have three or four per line, it will only show one), but it isnt going to reformat the entire email.
Especially since the email is generally formatted for a reason.
The sender has not formatted the email (thatws an auto-reply email, right?) for small screens or mobile devices.
If you open the email in outlook and then reduce the window size to 1/4 or smaller than you will see the exact same thing on the Outlook email...
So, there is nothing you can do on the BB. Its the sender who needs to change their emails.
Checked out my Blackberry FAQ's and Links to Needed Articles here
http://darkeen.homelinux.com/index.php/Blackberryfaq

Need help modifying Applescript to copy "Spotlight Comments" into file

Hello all,
I have a very large batch of images of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. I used the "Spotlight Comments" field of each file to save information about the notebook page depicted in each image:
Well, I had to modify each image in Photoshop and when I saved the files, Photoshop of course didn't retain the Spotlight Comments. Now, before I modified the images, I duplicated the directory, so I have a copy of all of the images that retain their Spotlight Comments field with each image's information. What I want to do is copy the text from the Spotlight Comments field of the original files and either paste this text into the Spotlight Comments field of the modified files (which are in a different directory, but retain the same filenames as the originals), or at least copy the text from the Spotlight Comments field of the original files and paste each block of text into a txt file with a couple of blank lines in between each entry, so that I can manually copy/paste the citations into the modified image's Spotlight Comments fields.
I successfully used this Applescript: https://discussions.apple.com/message/6741062#6741062
to get the Spotlight Comments from the original files, but it displays them one by one in pop-up dialog boxes and because I have almost a thousand images it is extraordinarily wearisome to copy the text from each pop-up, paste it into a text file, make two blank lines, click "OK" in the pop-up to get the next one...
Can anyone suggest how I can modify the code I have to tell the Finder to copy the contents of each pop-up and paste them into a single text file with a couple of blank lines between each entry?
I have the barest, most rudimentary knowledge of Applescript, which is why I'm asking if one of the wizards here can help me modify or write an Applescript to do what I need to do.
Thank you so much!
BTW, here is the code from the aforementioned discussion that gets the Spotlight Comments from files. I made into an Applescript application using Automator:
tell application "Finder"
repeat with tItem in input
set (comment of tItem) to (text returned) of (display dialog "Spotlight Comment: " default answer (comment of tItem as string))
end repeat
end tell

Hi,
Evan Izer wrote:
Now, before I modified the images, I duplicated the directory, so I have a copy of all of the images that retain their Spotlight Comments field with each image's information. What I want to do is copy the text from the Spotlight Comments field of the original files and either paste this text into the Spotlight Comments field of the modified files (which are in a different directory, but retain the same filenames as the originals)
This script does exactly that:
set sFolder to (choose folder "Select folder wich contains original images.") as string
set dFolder to choose folder "Select folder wich contains modified images."
tell application "Finder"
      repeat with tItem in (get document files of dFolder)
            set origFile to sFolder & (get name of tItem)
            if file origFile exists then
                  set origComment to comment of file origFile
                  set comment of tItem to origComment
            end if
      end repeat
end tell

Transfer Spotlight Comments?

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