Don’t let dragging and dropping become a drag. If you’re always doing the same things, stop right now — and let Automator take over the tedium. Your very own robot loves to say “I can do that.”

Robots Don’t Grumble

Accomplish all of your time-consuming, repetitive manual tasks quickly, efficiently and effortlessly with Automator Workflows. It’s simple to create custom Workflows just by dragging items, pointing and clicking. Perform the task once using your Automator Workflow or many times — even share Workflows with friends.

You can easily automate tasks such as renaming a large group of files, resizing dozens of images to fit an iPhoto slideshow or creating iCal birthday events using Address Book contacts, then repeat those tasks again and again. Simple and easy-to-understand application Actions are the building blocks, so you don’t have to write any code. Each Action has all of the options and settings you need. You don’t have to work hard to figure out how to make it work.

You can even incorporate Tiger’s new Spotlight search into Workflows to identify items automatically. Simply drag the Finder Action into your Workflow, click “Run” and powerful Spotlight search technology takes over to find files, disks, folders or items that match whatever criteria you choose.

Go With the Flow

Automator comes complete with a library of hundreds of Actions. Each Action is designed to perform a single task, such as finding linked images in a web page, renaming a group of files or creating a new event in an iCal calendar. Actions from the Automator library are added in sequence to a Workflow document. Each Action in the Workflow corresponds to an individual step that you would normally do to accomplish your task. The results of one action are seamlessly passed to the next action.

For example, you can rename a group of image files so they all share the same base name but are numbered sequentially (ProductShot001.jpg, ProductShot002.jpg, etc.) in seconds. Once they’re renamed, Automator can automatically scale every image, create an archive and then attach it to a new email message and send the message. After you create a Workflow, you execute it by clicking the Run button in the Workflow document window. Automator performs each step in the Workflow in order until your work is done.

Play it Again… and Again

Save and reuse Automator Workflows using the same items as the last time it was run, with new items you select or with the items found using Tiger’s new system-wide Spotlight search. You can even share your favorite Workflows with others.

Developers in Action

With Automator, you’ll never find yourself at a loss for Workflow Actions. Developers are extending the reach of Automator by creating new Actions for their applications. Expand your library by downloading new Actions from third-party developers or create your own using AppleScript.