Deleting all files in a selection of folders using applescript - applescript

I currently have a script that deletes all files in a particular file path, that are 14 days old:
tell application "Finder"
delete (every file of folder "client" of folder "test" of folder "Dev, Con & Product" of folder "Google Drive" of folder (path to home folder) whose creation date is less than ((get current date) - 14 * days))
end tell
I am struggling to adapt this script so that instead of looking in the "client" folder and deleting all files, it looks in the "client 1", "client 2", "client 3" folders etc. and deletes all files that are 14 days old.
Any help on this would be great,
Thanks

Assuming that client 1 , client 2,...folders are still in same path (in folder "Dev, Con & Product", then keep current script, just changing "client" to "client 1"
if you have some many client folder, then you must use a repeat loop instead :
set myParent to (((path to home folder) as string) & "Google Drive:Dev, Con & Product:test") as alias
tell application "Finder"
set Myfolders to every folder of folder myParent whose name contains "Client"
repeat with OneFolder in Myfolders
delete (every file of OneFolder whose creation date is less than ((get current date) - 14 * days))
end repeat
end tell

Related

Use Applescript to open a file under a specified folder

Say I have a bunch of folders with similar subpaths:
Folder 1
Do
Re
Mi
<Files>
Folder 2
Do
Re
Mi
<Different Files>
I know I can use tell application Finder to open "Macintosh HD:Users: ... to open a folder. Is there any way to queue a popup to select which of Folder 1 or Folder 2 I would like to enter, then input it into the above command? For instance, if I select Folder 1, it would go to ...Folder 1/Do/Re/Mi, whereas if I select Folder 2, it would go to ...Folder 2/Do/Re/Mi.
One thing I tried is combining do shell script with concatenate to get do shell script "open " & variable & "/Do/Re/Mi/", but the code fails if the file name is more than one word.
Set a base folder
Retrieve all folder names of the base folder
Create a list
Choose an item
Concatenate the path and open the folder
For example (set baseFolder to the alias of the parent folder of Folder 1 and Folder 2)
set baseFolder to path to home folder
set folderList to {}
tell application "Finder" to set allFolders to name of folders of baseFolder
repeat with i from 1 to (count allFolders)
set end of folderList to (i as text) & space & item i of allFolders
end repeat
set chosenItem to choose from list folderList
if chosenItem is false then return
set chosenIndex to word 1 of item 1 of chosenItem
set selectedFolder to item chosenIndex of allFolders
set destinationFolder to (baseFolder as text) & selectedFolder & ":Do:Re:Mi:"
tell application "Finder"
if exists folder destinationFolder then
open folder destinationFolder
else
display dialog "Sorry, the folder does not exist"
end if
end tell

How do I delete old files, except the newest using AppleScript?

I have this script that I got from a MacRumors forum post, which deletes all old files in a folder:
-- Deletes all old files in Silversions folder, except the newest one.
set modDate to (15)
tell application "System Events"
set currentUser to (name of current user)
end tell
tell application "Finder"
try
delete (entire contents in folder "Silversions" of folder "From Unimportant Source" of folder "Documents" of folder "Libraries" of folder "Google Drive" of folder currentUser of folder "Users" of startup disk whose modification date is less than ((current date)) - modDate * days)
end try
end tell
Into this folder go attachments I get from particular automated emails. In theory, these will continually populate the folder, and I will always end up with the latest 15 days-worth of files. However, if the attachments are not successfully downloaded for some reason, I want to guarantee at least one file stays in the folder, which would be the most recently-gotten one.
How would I amend this script to leave the latest file in the folder?
I thought of a completely different way to accomplish this, using a little used feature introduced in OS X 10.4, Finder's sort command.
This is technically quicker.
-- Deletes all old files in Silversions folder, except the newest one.
tell application "System Events"
set currentUser to (name of current user)
end tell
tell application "Finder"
set theContainer to folder "Silversions" of folder "From Unimportant Source" of folder "Documents" of folder "Libraries" of folder "Google Drive" of folder currentUser of folder "Users" of startup disk
set sortedList to sort (get files of theContainer) by modification date
set keepName to name of (item -1 of sortedList)
delete (every file in theContainer whose name is not keepName)
end tell
display dialog "Kept file: " & keepName
Here's a flow that would do this. It basically repeats through every file in the main folder, checking its modification date, and if its newer, it stores it and deletes the previous newest file, otherwise it deletes that file.
-- Deletes all old files in Silversions folder, except the newest one.
tell application "System Events"
set currentUser to (name of current user)
end tell
tell application "Finder"
set theContainer to folder "Silversions" of folder "From Unimportant Source" of folder "Documents" of folder "Libraries" of folder "Google Drive" of folder currentUser of folder "Users" of startup disk
set newestFile to missing value
set newestDate to date "Monday, January 1, 1900 at 12:00:00 AM"
set deleteCount to 0
set fileList to files of theContainer
repeat with thisFile in fileList
set thisDate to (modification date of thisFile)
-- display dialog ("Newest: " & newestDate as string) & return & "This: " & thisDate as string
if thisDate > newestDate then
try
delete newestFile
set deleteCount to deleteCount + 1
end try
set newestFile to thisFile
set newestDate to (modification date of newestFile)
else
delete thisFile
set deleteCount to deleteCount + 1
end if
end repeat
end tell
display dialog "Deleted " & deleteCount & " files, and kept:" & return & (newestFile as string)

Trouble with script moving files to a newly created folder in Applescript

I am having trouble with what I think is a pretty straightforward task, but cannot seem to get my script to work correctly. I have found a lot of help through the forums with regards to the individual routines used, but it still seems to fail.
In short, what I would like to do is monitor a folder for new files being added. Once a batch of files are added (every other day or so), it will create a folder in another directory with the new folder name being the current date, move those files to the new directory, and then execute a simple bash script which uses the new directory name as an argument.
My script compiles ok, but once files are added it only creates the new folder and nothing else. I appreciate any help.
property the_sep : "-"
on adding folder items to my_folder after receiving the_files
tell application "Finder"
(* First create a new folder with name of folder = current date *)
set the_path to (folder "qa" of folder "Documents" of folder "ehmlab" of folder "Users" of disk "Macintosh HD")
set the_name to (item 1 of my myDate())
set the_name to (the_name & the_sep & item 2 of my myDate())
set the_name to (the_name & the_sep & item 3 of my myDate())
make folder at the_path with properties {name:the_name}
set newDir to the_path & the_name
end tell
(* Next, move the newly added files to the source into the newly created date folder *)
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in the_files
tell application "Finder"
try
set this_file to (item i of the_files)
move file this_file to folder newDir
end try
end tell
end repeat
do shell script "qc.sh " & newDir
end adding folder items to
on myDate()
set myYear to "" & year of (current date)
set myMth to text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & (month of (current date)) * 1)
set myDay to text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & day of (current date))
return {myYear, myMth, myDay}
end myDate
The failure reason are different path styles.
AppleScript uses HFS paths (colon separated).
UNIX uses POSIX paths (slash separated).
The solution is to coerce the HFS path string to POSIX path
do shell script "qc.sh " & quoted form of POSIX path of newDir
This is a shorter version of the script using the shell also for the time stamp and for creating the directory.
on adding folder items to my_folder after receiving the_files
(* Next, move the newly added files to the source into the newly created date folder,
"path to documents" is a relative path to the documents folder of the current user *)
set baseFolder to (path to documents folder as text) & "qa:"
set timeStamp to do shell script "date +%Y-%m-%d"
set newDir to baseFolder & timeStamp
do shell script "mkdir -p " & quoted form of POSIX path of newDir
(* Next, move the newly added files to the source into the newly created date folder *)
repeat with aFile in the_files
tell application "Finder"
try
move aFile to folder newDir
end try
end tell
end repeat
do shell script "qc.sh " & quoted form of POSIX path of newDir
end adding folder items to

Applescript - move files to folder which name begins with first 7 characters of filename

I've got 2 folders
the first folder contains all the files which I'd like to move to a subfolder of the second folder. I'd like to this based on the first 7 characters of both the file & folder names.
So if the first 7 characters of the subfolder in FOLDER 2 matches the first 7 characters of the file in FOLDER 1. The file get's moved into the subfolder of FOLDER 2
Right now I've got an Applescript which works, but it's terribly slow.
Here's the script so far:
set mgFileList to ""
set mgDestFolder to ""
set mgFilesFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Where are the files stored which you would like to move to the destination?")
set mgDestFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Where is the destination folder?")
set folderList to contents of mgDestFolder
tell application "Finder" to set fileList to files of mgFilesFolder
repeat with aFile in fileList
set prefix to getPrefix(name of aFile)
tell application "Finder"
try
set destinationFolder to (1st folder of mgDestFolder whose name begins with prefix)
move aFile to destinationFolder
end try
end tell
end repeat
on getPrefix(aName)
set prefix to text 1 thru 7 of aName
return prefix
end getPrefix
I've only recently got into Applescripting. Can this be done more efficiently within Applescript? I've searched around for a solution which works with a shell script (which I think will probably be a lot faster), but haven't been able to get any of them working.
I'm working on OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.4
--
edit
I see that I've uploaded the wrong version of the script I've managed to put together so far. Above is the script that is working, but it's really slow. Probably because it doesn't use any shell script.
---------------update-------------------
Here is the final script that is working pretty fast right now:
set mgFilesFolder to choose folder with prompt "Where are the files stored which you would like to move to the destination?"
set mgDestFolder to choose folder with prompt "Where is the destination folder?"
tell application "System Events"
set fileList to files of mgFilesFolder whose name does not start with "."
repeat with aFile in fileList
set prefix to my getPrefix(name of aFile)
try
set destinationFolder to (1st folder of mgDestFolder whose name begins with prefix)
move aFile to POSIX path of destinationFolder
end try
end repeat
end tell
on getPrefix(aName)
try
set prefix to text 1 thru 7 of aName
return prefix
on error
return aName
end try
end getPrefix
The Finder is generally a slow program because it does a lot of things on your computer. Therefore you should avoid using it if possible. In your case these tasks can be done using System Events. Try this, maybe it will be faster. Note that you had a couple mistakes in your code which are fixed in this code.
set mgFilesFolder to choose folder with prompt "Where are the files stored which you would like to move to the destination?"
set mgDestFolder to choose folder with prompt "Where is the destination folder?"
tell application "System Events"
set fileList to files of mgFilesFolder whose name does not start with "."
repeat with aFile in fileList
set prefix to my getPrefix(name of aFile)
try
set destinationFolder to (1st folder of mgDestFolder whose name begins with prefix)
move aFile to POSIX path of destinationFolder
end try
end repeat
end tell
on getPrefix(aName)
try
set prefix to text 1 thru 7 of aName
return prefix
on error
return aName
end try
end getPrefix
Not sure how many files you're working with, but I tested this with 10 folders and ~100 files, and it took less than 4 seconds to run. Working with strings is much faster than working with files, so the script gets the files/folders as strings and builds aliases when they're needed.
set mgFilesFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Where are the files stored which you would like to move to the destination?")
set mgDestFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Where is the destination folder?")
--Always use System Events whenever possible. It's WAY faster than Finder.
tell application "System Events"
set folderList to name of folders of mgDestFolder
set fileList to name of files of mgFilesFolder
end tell
repeat with i from 1 to (count folderList)
set folderName to item i of folderList
set filesToMove to {}
repeat with j from 1 to (count fileList)
set filename to item j of fileList
if filename begins with folderName then
set end of filesToMove to alias ((mgFilesFolder as string) & filename)
end if
end repeat
--Can't use system events for moving files. You have to use Finder.
tell application "Finder"
move filesToMove to alias ((mgDestFolder as string) & folderName & ":")
end tell
end repeat
It might be easier to use shell scripting:
cd FOLDER1; for f in *; do d=../FOLDER2/"${f:0:7}"*; [[ -d $d ]] && mv "$f" "$d"; done

Applescript copy files to mounted volume; test for file(s) already exists

I am writing a script to allow students to upload their files to a shared folder on teacher's computer in a computer lab (same network). I have a working script that, when executed, will duplicate all files in the folder UPLOAD on the student machine to the folder SUBMISSIONS on the teacher's machine. However, if a file already exists on the teacher machine, the script hangs.
I need to be able to test for the presence of individual files on the teacher machine and either (a) pop a message that says "this file already exists, rename it and upload again" or (b) append something to the file name to differentiate it...a random number or "copy 1" etc.
Ideally I want it to run as a folder action. When a file is added to the "UPLOAD" folder it will automatically be sent to the teacher. But I don't want files to copy over files of the same name...or for the script to hang.
Any thoughts or alterative approaches would be welcome.
Here's my code:
set home_path to path to home folder as string
set work_folder to alias (home_path & "Desktop:" & "Upload")
try
mount volume "afp://[LOGIN INFO].local/Submissions"
set this_folder to result as alias
tell application "Finder"
tell application "Finder"
duplicate every file of work_folder to this_folder
end tell
eject this_folder
end tell
end try
I think that it would help if your try-block had an on-error block to inform you about any errors.
try
# try stuff here
j # this will compile but will throw a runtime error and you can see the error
on error error_message number error_number
display alert "Error: " & error_message & return & return & (error_number as text)
end try
OK. I tried again to write some code. Here is my version.
It does a couple of things differently than the code posted by the original poster.
It copies the files and folders into a new folder on the server with a time-stamp to cope with the problems of whether some of the files already exist on the server.
I changed the wording of the duplicate statement from duplicating every "file" to duplicating every "item" so that folders are duplicated too.
I put in an on-error block in the try-statement to display any errors.
I activate Finder so that you can see the progress window.
I pop up a dialog at the end if there were no errors.
I had a problem that I had to fix:
On the server, I had to enable write permissions for the client or I got a -5000 error.
I think that the following code should work pretty well. It's almost 100% AppleScript. It only uses one call to the shell and that is to get the current date and format it for the time-stamp for new folders created on the server.
# set the path to the "work_folder" where the files are to be uploaded
set home_path to path to home folder as string
set work_folder to alias (home_path & "Desktop:" & "Upload")
# duplicate the files and folders in work_folder to the server
try
# TODO set the name of your server here
set the_volume to mount volume "afp://32-bit.local/Submissions"
set destination_path to the_volume as text
set folder_name to getTimeStamp()
tell application "Finder"
activate
set new_folder to make new folder at alias destination_path with properties {name:folder_name}
duplicate every item of work_folder to new_folder
eject the_volume
display alert "Successfully uploaded the files and folders"
end tell
on error error_message number error_number
if error_number is not equal to -128 then
display alert "Error: " & error_message & return & return & (error_number as text)
end if
end try
# This function returns the current date and time as a time-stamp of the form yyyy-mm-dd-hh-ss
# This function uses a shell script because it's just a lot easier to do than in AppleScript
on getTimeStamp()
set time_stamp to do shell script "date '+%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S'"
return time_stamp
end getTimeStamp
Here's another idea for debugging. You can put in calls to "display dialog" to be able to know where your script is failing:
display dialog "Entering script"
set home_path to path to home folder as string
display dialog "home_path: " & home_path
set work_folder to alias (home_path & "Desktop:" & "Upload")
display dialog "work_folder: " & work_folder as string
try
mount volume "afp://32-bit.local/Submissions"
set this_folder to result as alias
display dialog "this_folder: " & this_folder as string
tell application "Finder"
display dialog "Inside of the first tell application Finder"
tell application "Finder"
display dialog "About to call duplicate"
duplicate every file of work_folder to this_folder
display dialog "Just returned from calling duplicate"
end tell
display dialog "About to call eject"
eject this_folder
display dialog "Just returned from call to eject"
end tell
on error error_message number error_number
display alert "Error:" & error_message & return & return & (error_number as text)
end try
display dialog "Exiting script"
Another debugging technique is to log output to a text file.
Another debugging technique is to purchase the AppleScript debugger:
http://www.latenightsw.com/sd4/index.html
I believe that this debugger costs $200.00 that's too pricey for me, but I've used other debuggers and debuggers are wonderful tools that let you "peek inside" of your script while it's running to see the value of variables and to trace which lines of code are being executed.
This script will copy each file over to the mounted volume. If a file exists with the same name at the destination it will add a number to the end of the copy file name and try that.
Example:if test.doc exists in the folder already then the script will try and copy it with the name test_1.doc and so on..
The original file is never renamed and the older files are never overwritten.
The script is fully commented to explain what it is doing.
** Update2 **
The copy to destination code is now in it's own handler.
The original files are labeled by the finder label index 6 (green) to indicate successful copied.
This will also stop the same original file from being copied twice by using the index colour as a check. If it is labeled index label 7 it will be ignored.
You could if you want move the successful copied files to another folder out of the way using the script. But I have not done this in this script.
set home_path to path to home folder as string
set work_folder to alias (home_path & "Desktop:" & "Upload")
set counter to ""
global counter
--try
set this_folder to mount volume "afp://myMac/UserName/"
this_folder as text
tell application "Finder" to set theFiles to every file of work_folder as alias list #GET ALL FILES OF LOCAL FOLDER AS ALIASES
tell application "Finder" to set theRemoteFiles to (every file of ((this_folder & "Submissions:" as string) as alias)) #GET ALL FILES OF REMOTE FOLDER -- ONLY NEEDED FOR COUNT CHECK LATER
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in theFiles #PROCESS EACH LOCAL FILE
set this_item to item i of theFiles #GET A LOCAL FILE
tell application "Finder" to set LabelIndex to label index of this_item
if LabelIndex is not 6 then
tell application "Finder" to set this_name to displayed name of this_item #GET ITS DISPLAYED NAME
tell application "Finder" to set this_extension to name extension of this_item #GET ITS EXTENSION NAME i.E "txt"
set realName to (do shell script "echo " & quoted form of this_name & "| awk -F '" & quoted form of this_extension & "' '{print $1}'") #GET ITS NAME WITHOUT EXTENSION NAME
set counter to 1 # SET A NUMBER TO ADD TO THE FILE NAME IF THE FILE NAME EXIST ALREADY IN THE REMOTE FOLDER
my checkName(this_name, realName, this_item, this_extension, theRemoteFiles, this_folder) # CALL TO HANDLER THAT WILL DO THE CHECKING AND COPYING
end if
end repeat
tell application "Finder" to eject this_folder
# THE CALL TO THE HANDLER INCLUDES VARIABLES THAT ARE NOT GLOBAL OR PROPERTIES BUT NEED TO BE PASSED ON TO IT I.E(this_name, realName, this_item, this_extension, theRemoteFiles, this_folder)
on checkName(this_name, realName, this_item, this_extension, theRemoteFiles, this_folder)
# (1) IF THE NUMBER OF theRemoteFiles IS GREATER THAN 0 THEN FILES EXIST IN THE REMOTE FOLDER AND MAY CONTAIN FILES WITH THE SAME NAMES AS THE LOCAL ONES. PROCESS..
# (2) IF THE NUMBER OF theRemoteFiles IS NOT GREATER THAN 0.THEN FILES DO NOT EXIST IN THE REMOTE FOLDER AND THE LOCAL ONES CAN JUST BE COPIED OVER.
if (count of theRemoteFiles) is greater than 0 then # (1)
try
my copyOver(this_item, this_folder, this_name)
on error errMssg #WE USE not overwritten ERROR TO TRIGGER THE RENAME THE DESTINATION FILE NAME TO INCLUDE A NEW NUMBER.
--tell application "Finder" to set label index of this_item to 6
if errMssg contains "not overwritten" then
set this_name to (realName & counter & "." & this_extension)
set counter to counter + 1 #WE SETUP THE FILE NAME NUMBER FOR THE POSSIBLE NEXT RUN
# RUN THE HANDLER AGAIN WITH THE CHANED DETAILS
my checkName(this_name, realName, this_item, this_extension, theRemoteFiles, this_folder)
end if
end try
else # (2)
my copyOver(this_item, this_folder, this_name)
end if
end checkName
on copyOver(this_item, this_folder, this_name)
# THE -n OPTION IN THE SHELL COMMAND TELLS CP NOT TO OVERWRITE EXISTING FILES. AN ERROR OCCURE IF THE FILE EXISTS.
# THE -p OPTION IN THE SHELL COMMAND TELLS CP TO PRESERVE THE FOLLOWING ATTRIBUTES OF EACH SOURCE FILE IN THE COPY:
# modification time, access time, file flags, file mode,
#user ID, and group ID, as allowed by permissions. Access Control
#Lists (ACLs) and Extended Attributes (EAs), including resource
#forks, will also be preserved.
# THE -v OPTION IN THE SHELL COMMAND TELLS CP TO USE VERBOS MODE. WHICH GIVES US A BETTER CLUE OF THE ERROR
set theResult to (do shell script "cp -npv " & quoted form of (POSIX path of this_item) & space & quoted form of (POSIX path of (this_folder & "Submissions:" as string) & this_name))
if theResult contains "->" then
tell application "Finder" to set label index of this_item to 6
else
tell application "Finder" to set label index of this_item to 7
end if
end copyOver

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