How to Use Quick Actions in Mac OS Mojave
Posted on 19th June 2023
Apple’s MacOS Mojave has a new feature called Quick Actions, which are essentially quick and easy ways to automate Finder tasks that you do regularly. Here’s how to use them.
First, open a Finder window and click on a file or folder. In the preview pane, you’ll see a list of Quick Actions on the right side. If you don’t see the preview pane, you can click the View button in the toolbar and select Show Preview.
To use a Quick Action, simply click on it. For example, if you click on the Rotate action, the selected file will be rotated clockwise by 90 degrees.
If you want to see more options for a Quick Action, click the More button. This will open a menu with additional options for the Quick Action.
You can also add your own Quick Actions by clicking the Automator button in the toolbar. This will open the Automator application, where you can create custom Quick Actions using a variety of different actions.
Once you’ve created a custom Quick Action, you can add it to the Finder by clicking the Add to Finder button in the Automator application.
Quick Actions can be a great way to boost your productivity by automating repetitive tasks. Give them a try and see how they can help you get your work done more efficiently.
In macOS Mojave, Apple introduced a new feature called Quick Actions. Quick Actions are context-sensitive shortcuts that appear in the Finder when you Control+Click or Right-Click on a file. Quick Actions allow you to perform common tasks on files without having to open them in an app.
To use Quick Actions, Control+Click or Right-Click on a file in the Finder. A menu will appear with a variety of Quick Actions that you can perform on the file. Depending on the file type, different Quick Actions will be available. For example, Quick Actions for image files will allow you to edit the image or create a new Markup document from it.
Not all Quick Actions are available for all file types. To see which Quick Actions are available for a particular file type, you can Control+Click or Right-Click on a file, then hover over the Quick Actions menu item. A submenu will appear showing all of the Quick Actions that are available for that file type.
Some Quick Actions are only available when you are using a specific app. For example, the Create PDF Quick Action is only available when you are viewing a file in the Preview app. To use a Quick Action that is only available in an app, you first need to open the file in the app. Then, Control+Click or Right-Click on the file, and the Quick Action will be available in the Quick Actions menu.
Quick Actions can be customized to add your own frequently used actions, or to remove actions that you don’t use. To customize Quick Actions, open the Automator app. Then, click on the File menu and select New. In the New Document window, select Quick Action and click Choose.
In the next window, you will be asked to choose a workflow type. There are a variety of workflow types that you can choose from, depending on what you want your Quick Action to do. For example, if you want to create a Quick Action that compresses files, you would select the Run Shell Script workflow type.
Once you’ve selected a workflow type, you will be asked to provide a name and description for your Quick Action. The name is what will appear in the Quick Actions menu, so choose something that will help you remember what the Quick Action does.
After you’ve named and described your Quick Action, the next step is to add the actions that you want the Quick Action to perform. This is where you will use the Automator app to create your workflow. Depending on the workflow type that you selected, different actions will be available. For example, if you selected the Run Shell Script workflow type, you will be able to add actions such as Get Selected Finder Items and Run Shell Script.
Once you’ve added the actions that you want your Quick Action to perform, the next step is to test it. To test your Quick Action, Control+Click or Right-Click on a file in the Finder and select More > Run Workflow. Your Quick Action will run on the selected file.
If you want to use your Quick Action on multiple files at once, you can select the files in the Finder, then Control+Click or Right-Click on one of the selected files and select More > Run Workflow. Your Quick Action will run on all of the selected files.
Once you’ve created a Quick Action, you can add it to the Quick Actions menu by Control+Clicking or Right-Clicking on the Quick Action in the Automator app and selecting Add to Quick Actions.
You can also add Quick Actions to the Finder toolbar by Control+Clicking or Right-Clicking on the Quick Action in the Automator app and selecting Add to Finder Toolbar.
Quick Actions are a great way to automate common tasks in macOS Mojave. With Quick Actions, you can perform tasks on files without having to open them in an app. Quick Actions can be customized to add your own frequently used actions, or to remove actions that you don’t use. Use
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The good news is that you can now customize the Quick Actions menu to make it more useful. Here’s how:
1) Launch Automator and create a new Quick Action.
2) In the Action Type drop-down menu, select “Run Shell Script.”
3) In the Run Shell Script text field, enter the following:
for f in “$@”
do
name=$(basename “$f” .jpg)
sips -s format jpeg -Z 100 “$f” –out “$name-optimized.jpg”
done
4) Save the Quick Action.
5) Now, when you right-click on a batch of images in the Finder, you’ll see the new Quick Action appear in the menu. Select it, and the images will be optimized and saved with a new name.
