Some file names are automatically changed when arriving at your Mac. A good example is an email attachment – some mail clients add an .html extension to all attachment names, making the recipient unable to open them. As a result they have to manually change the names. Annoying, isn’t it?
The problem can be easily solved by Folder Action – one of the workflows of Mac OS’s Automator. It can be configured to initiate certain actions, such as renaming, resizing, archiving etc. Let’s see how to set up Folder Action for renaming.
1. Go to your Applications folder and select Automator.
2. Select Folder Action as the Automator workflow type.
3. Create a folder to be used for renaming.
4. Select this folder for Folder Action in Automator.
5. In the list of actions, select the Rename Finder Items element and drag it to the work area. The app will ask you whether it should add duplicate files; select Don’t Add.
6. Change the default settings in the Rename Finder Items action:
a. From the drop-down list, select Replace Text.
b. Enter the text you want to replace in the Find box.
c. Don’t fill in the Replace text box.
7. Save the action.
8. Now put some files in your designated folder and see how the odd parts of the file names disappear. And that’s it!