Note that dictation is not the same as a voice command through Siri.Īs there are too many examples to show you all of what Automator can do, let’s take a look at a few basic examples. By using Accessibility’s enhanced dictation option, voice-driven workflows can be established.

Dictation Command: this workflow runs whenever a specified dictation is used.

An action will generally be performed as images are being imported from a camera, iPhone, iPad, etc.

Image Capture Plugin: this workflow is used in combination with the built-in Image Capture application on the Mac.

Calendar Alarm: this workflow will be set to run whenever a preset Calendar event occurs that has been set up in the native Calendar application.

This will take a PDF document from the print menu and perform whatever action you have established.

Print Plugin: this workflow is enabled within the Print dialog wherever printing can occur.

The Services menu is often found at the bottom of the right-click menu where available.

Quick Action: this workflow is best used with Finder Windows, the Touch Bar or the Services menu.

This may be used to process data or start an action.

Application: this workflow is standalone and only runs when you open it or drop files or folders on it.

Workflow: any workflow that can be run within the Automator app itself is the easiest way to use Automator.

For each iteration you simply have to be sure to configure the Filter Finder Items action to look for the content you seek-movie, music, PDF, or presentation file, for instance-and then direct it to a folder you’ve created and dragged into the trio’s instance of the Move Finder Items action. The secret to doing that is to create additional instances of the last three actions-Get Folder Contents, Filter Finder Items, and Move Finder Items.

You can ask it to keep an eye peeled for incoming music, ebook, and PDF files, if you like. The beauty of this workflow is that you can keep adding other kinds of filters to it. When I download an image file-a JPEG, PNG, or TIFF file, for example-it moves to the My Pictures folder. dmg), that file automatically moves to the Disk Images folder I created. In this case, when I download a disk-image file (one that ends with the extension. Whenever something appears in that folder that meets the conditions set in the workflow, good things happen.

We’ve just created a workflow that is attached to the Downloads folder.

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