Thank you for this clear and concise tutorial. This is the best tutorial for saving files to specific folder using shortcuts app in macOS. Your latest subscriber 🙏
@EasyOSX - I am looking for some help with "shortcuts" I am relatively new to MacOS and some things are not clicking in my mind. I want to automate copying video files (mp4) from an SD card to an external SSD. I want to plug my SD card into my Mac Mini via dock and copy them to my SSD plugged into my thunderbolt usb c port. I am following you video, but am not having any success selecting the external storage devices to use in shortcuts. Is it even possible to do this or am I just wasting my time? Thanks for posting this video. Enjoy the journey - cheers
Hi Bota Bob, sorry I missed your comment. I dont have your dock, but tried using an external driver connected directly to the Mac without issue. The app saw the drive and exported the files there when run. If you try using that drive connected directly to the Mini, does it give you the same problem? Also is the drive in a Mac compatible format?
Hey Easy. Excellent video by the way. I followed your step by step instructions for the 2nd part copying to a folder. I have a file that I regularly update and save it to another folder for backup. So I created the shortcut. However, when I run it, it doesn't copy and paste/save the file into the folder. However, when I "right click" on the file and choose" the "Quick Action" choice and then choose the short cut it works. I was hoping just to run the short cut itself and it would perform the copy and save/paste into the folder, overwriting anything that was already there. Thoughts?
Sorry for the delay. I tested this myself and noticed something interesting. Like you, I was able to run it from the "Quick Action" menu but wasn't able to run it from the menu bar using the "Pin in Menu Bar" option. I also tried using the "Icon in the Dock" function with the same results. However, when I set a keyboard shortcut (in my case ⌃⌥M) it ran flawlessly. If I had to guess, when you click on something outside the Finder window, even though the Mac shows that window is still in focus, from the Shortcuts perspective the focus has changed and it doesn't have anything selected for you to copy. Can you try the keyboard shortcut method and see if that works?
@@EasyOSX Thanks for this. I found that the file has to be selected in order to run the Keyboard shortcut command. If I don't single click on the file on my Desktop - no Quick Action will run. But once I select the file [not opening it of course], then run the keyboard shortcut, it works. Would be nice to know how to create a short cut by clicking on it in the Menu bar to "Select File", run Quick Action shortcut. Maybe its more simple than I'm making it. 🙂
Glad you got it working. Again it might be something with Apple's implementation that impedes that menu bar functionality, but I'll have to play around with it to find out.
@@EasyOSX Yeah. Thought it would be as easy similar to creating a Macro in Microsoft Excel or a batch file exe for Windows - similar to those short cut workflows. Ideally, I have tasks that i repeat every other day, and it'd be great to just click a button or icon or something and have all those tasks happen through automation.
@daecarman67 I get that. Shortcuts is becoming more and more powerful with each year, and there’s a lot of things I’ve been able to automate with it. That said it has its quirks, and it’s not as powerful as something like Automator or even bash scripts. You might have to look into those depending on the task you need to do
Theoretically yes, the first issue I’m seeing is though is making sure the files are selected to be used. You might have to select them by hand and then trigger the copy command
Great walkthrough! Thanks a lot! I do convert images using shortcuts from RAW to JPEG, but I'd like to have a folder created called JPEG where the files are stored that I want to convert. How would I accomplish this to take place once I select a bunch for files that are to be converted to JPEG?
Hey Andreas. If you’re adding to your existing shortcut, you can use the “New Folder” action to make the folder, then use the “Move File” action from the first part of the video to do the moving. You would need to have the Move action select the created files at the end of the convert/save file that you already have in your existing shortcut.
@@EasyOSX How do I make sure that the "New folder" is created in the same place as where the original files are stored? Kind of a "dynamic" path to a folder created with the name ie "jpeg".
Another thing I noticed was say you have two folders and one folder contains one item and the other has more than one item. When you do a copy via the loop, the folder with more than 1 items gets copied over, however when you copy the folder with one item, the item gets copied with the folder name. Thats odd too. Looks like a bug
Well I'm befuddled. I tested this several times after reading your comment and was able to replicate what you every time except once, and that was when the file was saved into another folder on the drive. But then after that, it wouldn't work again. Also tried on HFS and ExFat formatted drives. I'm not sure if this is a bug or if there's something I'm missing about how this function operates. I'll have to investigate this some more. Sorry for the trouble.
You are correct, but when you are trying to tell people the name of your channel, it is easier to say the letter X rather than 10. If I say OS 10 and they look up “Easy OS 10” they wonder why they can’t find my channel. Admittedly, it can mean that I might end up saying “X”, when actually talking about the operating system instead of using its proper name, but given we’re also past OS 10 it’s a bit of a moot point.
Thank you for this clear and concise tutorial. This is the best tutorial for saving files to specific folder using shortcuts app in macOS.
Your latest subscriber 🙏
@EasyOSX - I am looking for some help with "shortcuts" I am relatively new to MacOS and some things are not clicking in my mind. I want to automate copying video files (mp4) from an SD card to an external SSD. I want to plug my SD card into my Mac Mini via dock and copy them to my SSD plugged into my thunderbolt usb c port.
I am following you video, but am not having any success selecting the external storage devices to use in shortcuts. Is it even possible to do this or am I just wasting my time? Thanks for posting this video. Enjoy the journey - cheers
Hi Bota Bob, sorry I missed your comment. I dont have your dock, but tried using an external driver connected directly to the Mac without issue. The app saw the drive and exported the files there when run. If you try using that drive connected directly to the Mini, does it give you the same problem? Also is the drive in a Mac compatible format?
How do you select multiple files from different folder and copy them to one folder? in not possible? Thanks
Yeah you’d have to do some tweaking of the sample version I provided here, but otherwise it should be possible.
Hey Easy. Excellent video by the way. I followed your step by step instructions for the 2nd part copying to a folder. I have a file that I regularly update and save it to another folder for backup. So I created the shortcut. However, when I run it, it doesn't copy and paste/save the file into the folder. However, when I "right click" on the file and choose" the "Quick Action" choice and then choose the short cut it works. I was hoping just to run the short cut itself and it would perform the copy and save/paste into the folder, overwriting anything that was already there. Thoughts?
Sorry for the delay. I tested this myself and noticed something interesting. Like you, I was able to run it from the "Quick Action" menu but wasn't able to run it from the menu bar using the "Pin in Menu Bar" option. I also tried using the "Icon in the Dock" function with the same results. However, when I set a keyboard shortcut (in my case ⌃⌥M) it ran flawlessly.
If I had to guess, when you click on something outside the Finder window, even though the Mac shows that window is still in focus, from the Shortcuts perspective the focus has changed and it doesn't have anything selected for you to copy. Can you try the keyboard shortcut method and see if that works?
@@EasyOSX Thanks for this. I found that the file has to be selected in order to run the Keyboard shortcut command. If I don't single click on the file on my Desktop - no Quick Action will run. But once I select the file [not opening it of course], then run the keyboard shortcut, it works. Would be nice to know how to create a short cut by clicking on it in the Menu bar to "Select File", run Quick Action shortcut. Maybe its more simple than I'm making it. 🙂
Glad you got it working. Again it might be something with Apple's implementation that impedes that menu bar functionality, but I'll have to play around with it to find out.
@@EasyOSX Yeah. Thought it would be as easy similar to creating a Macro in Microsoft Excel or a batch file exe for Windows - similar to those short cut workflows. Ideally, I have tasks that i repeat every other day, and it'd be great to just click a button or icon or something and have all those tasks happen through automation.
@daecarman67 I get that. Shortcuts is becoming more and more powerful with each year, and there’s a lot of things I’ve been able to automate with it. That said it has its quirks, and it’s not as powerful as something like Automator or even bash scripts. You might have to look into those depending on the task you need to do
Great video! Can I use Siri for copying files?
Theoretically yes, the first issue I’m seeing is though is making sure the files are selected to be used. You might have to select them by hand and then trigger the copy command
If I use Siri, how does it take files as input?
@@EasyOSX Thanks. I am not sure though if Siri understands what files are currently being selected.
Yeah it might not be able to detect that. It’s something we’d have to experiment with
@@EasyOSX It would be nice to see a video about this!
Great walkthrough! Thanks a lot!
I do convert images using shortcuts from RAW to JPEG, but I'd like to have a folder created called JPEG where the files are stored that I want to convert. How would I accomplish this to take place once I select a bunch for files that are to be converted to JPEG?
Hey Andreas. If you’re adding to your existing shortcut, you can use the “New Folder” action to make the folder, then use the “Move File” action from the first part of the video to do the moving. You would need to have the Move action select the created files at the end of the convert/save file that you already have in your existing shortcut.
@@EasyOSX How do I make sure that the "New folder" is created in the same place as where the original files are stored?
Kind of a "dynamic" path to a folder created with the name ie "jpeg".
In the Create Folder Action, where you set the path you'd like the folder to be, right click on it and set it to "Shortcut Input".
Another thing I noticed was say you have two folders and one folder contains one item and the other has more than one item. When you do a copy via the loop, the folder with more than 1 items gets copied over, however when you copy the folder with one item, the item gets copied with the folder name. Thats odd too. Looks like a bug
Must be, something to experiment with to see if it’s something in my implementation or if it’s something in the Shortcuts app itself
When you use an external HDD to save, it fails when the overwrite option is checked
Well I'm befuddled. I tested this several times after reading your comment and was able to replicate what you every time except once, and that was when the file was saved into another folder on the drive. But then after that, it wouldn't work again. Also tried on HFS and ExFat formatted drives. I'm not sure if this is a bug or if there's something I'm missing about how this function operates. I'll have to investigate this some more. Sorry for the trouble.
Oh dear. It’s meant to be pronounced ‘OS 10’ not ‘OS X’ because the previous one was OS 9
You are correct, but when you are trying to tell people the name of your channel, it is easier to say the letter X rather than 10. If I say OS 10 and they look up “Easy OS 10” they wonder why they can’t find my channel.
Admittedly, it can mean that I might end up saying “X”, when actually talking about the operating system instead of using its proper name, but given we’re also past OS 10 it’s a bit of a moot point.