We spend so much of our workdays doing rather arduous and tedious tasks, especially if you're working on a computer of any kind. Renaming files, converting PDFs; these are the things that can take way ...

If you've been manually performing a task on your Mac over and over, you can automate it with Automator and use iCal to schedule when you want the task to run. Apple includes a free copy of Automator ...

For today’s tip, I’m going to show you how to use Automator to write a very simple backup utility—you’ll be able to compress and copy a given folder with a single mouse click. While not an ideal ...

We’ll start with a straightforward action, one which will take images from the Finder and resize them when you drop them onto the application icon on the desktop. Launch Automator, either from the ...

Sometimes when working with Automator, you might want a workflow to loop (or go back to the first step and continue to run through the workflow). Automator includes an easy-to-use "Loop" action, and ...

A few weeks ago, while I was preparing my coverage of Apple’s Q2 2013 earnings call, I grew tired of my system to resize and rename images on OS X, so I rebuilt it from scratch using Automator, Name ...

If you stay a lot of time away from your Macbook but you’ve always wanted to control what’s happening to your Mac while you’re not there, this tutorial is aimed at you. Today I’ll teach you how you ...

Mac OS X provides rich scripting and automation tools that can simplify everyday tasks—if you know how to use them. The roster includes the venerable command line, the graphical Automator utility, and ...

It doesn't have to be difficult to make your Mac automatically perform repetitive or tedious tasks for you. Apple's free Automator app on every Mac has a plethora of functions that take one step to ...

Take a look at any of Apple's promotional material for Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) and you'll find that a feature that consistently gets a top-billing is Automator. However, I suspect that, if you could ...