Automations Make Macs Fun - Try These
I use all kinds of apps and services on my Mac and iPhone to make things happen in the background to make my life easier. I like to reserve my headspace for things I enjoy contemplating, like where I'm going to get my next order of tacos. I don't like having to remember to do things, mostly because I'm not that good at it. Here are a few of my favorite "set it and forget it" workflows.
Journaling with Day One
My first Day One entry was in January 2014. Since then, I have over 20,000 separate posts that are backed up online and synced to my iPhone, iPad and Mac. Here are the entry types that get automatically created:
- Liked YouTube videos
- Posts from all three of my blogs
- Articles I save to Pocket
- Mastodon posts
- Every TV show and movie I watch
- Daily weather reports
- Books I add to Goodreads
All of these automations are done with IFTTT, may of them with RSS feeds. - Day One Integrations - Connect Your Apps with IFTTT
Time of Day and other Triggers with Keyboard Maestro
Keyboard Maestrohas a long list of triggering events that cause automations to run in the background. Here are a few of my favorites.
- Time of Day Trigger - an hour before I get up, Keyboard Maestro ejects my backup drive from my laptop so all I have to do is unplug it when I start the day - no more error messages because I was bleary-eyed and forgot to go through the procedure.
- Time of Day Trigger - at 2AM,Keyboard Maestro launches a file synchronization appthat backs up my Obsidian vault to Google Drive and then quits.
- Login Trigger - At work, whenever I log into my computer, all of my open apps are hidden so that if people are standing around my desk, they don't get to see what web pages I had opened when I left to go get a cup of coffee. It's none of their business.
File Magic With Hazel
Hazel is a Mac app that watches specified folders on your computer for certain conditions. When those conditions are met, it performs any of a long list of actions on the files.
- When I left Evernote, I missed being able to send emails to my my new notes app,Obsidian, so I created a workflow that gives me that non-native capability.
- Add images I download from the Internet to the Mac photos app - without even opening Photos
- With the help off a 99-cent app from the app store, Hazel automatically mounts downloaded DMG archives, extracts the program contained within, moves it to my Applications folder and dismounts the archive.
Obsidian Tricks
At it's core, Obsidian is just a plain text markdown editor. The power comes from it's massive 2000-plus and counting available plug-ins. Here are a few automations they allow me to set up.
- Download the full text of all the articles I send to my read-it-later service, Pocket.
- Download the highlights I make on any of the 1300 bookmarks I have saved in Raindrop
- Keep a centralized recordof my daily schedule and tasks completed using the data from my calendar and task manager.
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