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applescriptosx-mountain-lionautomator

Automatically copying a file to a network drive when it is saved

I was wondering if there is any way through applescript or automator in Mac OSX Mountain Lion to automatically copy a file or folder to a network drive after the file is saved/the folder is modified. I am trying to do this for a user who designs in Photoshop and has 2GB+ size files that take a long time to save to the network drive directly so I am trying to create a way where he can save locally and automatically have it copied over to the networked drive.

Solution

  • Using launchd, you could save a plist like this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/rsync_folder.plist:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>rsync_folder</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>[[ -e /Volumes/WD ]] &amp;&amp; rsync -a ~/Notes /Volumes/WD</string>
  </array>
  <key>WatchPaths</key>
  <array>
    <string>~/Notes/</string>
  </array>
</dict>
</plist>

    Then load it with launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/rsync_folder.plist or by logging out and back in.

    Or create a rule like this in Hazel:

    Neither watches for changes to files in subfolders (like ~/Notes/subfolder/file.txt) though.