> Automate more stuff on your Mac

Create multi-line text replacements

In the Text tab of System Preferences’ Keyboard pane, you can set short phrases to be replaced with longer blocks of text. This is great for accessing extended characters, and you can also paste multi-line text you’ve written in TextEdit into the With column.

Automate quitting every app

If you often have many apps open, you can close them all using the Quit All Applications action in Automator. Set whether apps ask to save changes; you can also remove specific apps from the action, so they remain open.

Scale images withA utomator

Automator can resize images with the Scale Images action. Set the number of pixels for each image’s long side. The app will offer to add a Copy Finder action so as to retain the originals, rather than replace them.

Make an “unread”M ailbox

On iOS, Apple provides an Unread folder for unread emails. Create a Smart Mailbox on your Mac to do the same. Simply add a “Message is unread” condition. Optionally, add a “Message is not in mailbox Junk” condition to omit junk mail.

Make a “Past Due” Smart Mailbox

It’s easy for emails to get lost among the items in your inbox. Create a Smart Mailbox with the conditions “Message is in Mailbox Inbox” and “Date received is not in the last 7 days.” This will contain mails that arrived over a week ago and need to be dealt with.

Rotate iTunes tracks

In iTunes, create a Smart Playlist with the rule “Last Played not in the last 30 days.” Add a “Media Kind is Music” rule. The playlist will include tracks you haven’t heard during the past month. You can refine this as necessary with ratings and artist information.