Banking

OldToad · ‎February 10, 2023

Hi Roland12

Okay. Just to preface this message, this message is meant for Roland12 to test if I've written these properly.

Roland, since you're using a Chrome browser, I think we should just have you tweak my step 13. Instead of looking for Safari.app, just look for your Chrome Browser app in applications and select that instead. I'm thinking everything else should be okay, but that's why we're trying this. Good Luck.

If something doesn't make sense or perhaps your Automator default pages aren't looking like mine, please let me know. I've numbered the steps for our reference.

Create an Automator Quick Action as an Attachment Download Workaround for Mac users using Safari and Finder.

1. You will need to go to your Applications Folder, locate the Automator.app and click it to open it.
2. From the first pop-up workflow to choose from, select Quick Action and then choose it to continue.
3. The Actions panel (under the Library and Media) should be chosen, if not already. The Library should be expanded, but if not, click the little drop down arrow beside it. The various actions in the expanded view should be alphabetical and should make it easier for you to find the actions we’ll add to the workflow.
4. Now, let’s go to the top right side of the screen. The “Workflow receives current” drop down box likely shows Automatic (text). You need to change that to “files or folders”, which is the first choice below “Files and Folders” found inside the dropdown.
5. To the right of that dropdown, that we just changed, should be another dropdown that “receives current” “in” “any application” and that needs to be changed with the dropdown to “Finder.app”.
6. “Input is” stays greyed out as seen, as well as the Output box. Leave alone.
7. Next is the “Image” dropdown. If the the little gear wheel Action is selected in the box then we still on the right track and it doesn’t need to be changed.
8. The Color can also stay black.
9. Now we are going to start to populate the big panel box with “drag actions or files here to build workflow”. These are items from the Library to the immediate left.
10. I’m just going to have you work from the big list Library second column. It’s alphabetical and actually represents all of the Library’s sub folders to its left.
11. Now scroll through the list to find “Get Specified Finder Items”. There are a lot of “get” so please ensure you pick the right one.
12. Select it and click and drag it into the box and let go. We don’t need to do anything else with that once it’s inside.
13. Next, scroll through the list again and locate “Open Finder Items” and click and drag it over and let go and make sure that it’s located below the previous entry. We now need to do some changes for that item to work as we want it to. You now should direct that “Open With” dropdown to open with “Safari.app”. I believe the “Default Application” is currently in that box. For whatever reason, as you scroll down the box, Safari isn’t shown. No problem, just keep going down to “Other” and select it. An Application Finder folder will open that will let you scroll down to be able to highlight and then select, choose, for the Safari.app. That will be it for this entry.
14. For the next addition, we go back to the left items and scroll down to locate “Wait For User Action” way down the list. Drag it over to the box and make sure it’s below the last entry.
15. There is a Message box field. Inside the message box you should type your own text, perhaps, something like “Click me because you need to! This will allow the workflow to operate better and eventually remove the temporarily saved attachment file from the system where you downloaded it to, but please do click it before the 1 minute”. Note, I had to put this “wait for user action” in because I found that without it, the browser didn’t load the file before it was instantly trashed in the next step. Also, if not already selected by default, the “Stop workflow after” box should be checked to be “on” and I believe that there is a “1” in the “Minute” box, by default.
16. The next, and last action, to drag over from the left is “Move Finder Item to Trash”, and it goes below the previous one. Nothing else needs to be added.
17. So, there should be only a total of four dragged items and that’s all for what I wanted to accomplish.
18. Next, we need to save this workflow file and give it a name. Go to the top toolbar and choose File then Save. A popup will allow you to name the file. Name it so you recognize it. This name is going to be the name you see while using your Finder secondary clicks, under Quick Actions. I personally named it “QBO Attachment View Workaround”.
19. Click Save and then Close Automator.
20. Test it while you have QBO open in your browser. Select whatever type of entry has been prompting you to save an attachment file first. You will still need to download that attachment. Just make sure you know where it was downloaded. I choose to only download these ridiculously long named files to my own, newly created folder on my Desktop, only because that’s where I wanted it. Obviously It was empty when I created it. The download from QBO adds the file to it because I directed it to save it that way.
21. Now, after going to the saved file, wherever you chose, the automator takes over the dirty work. I right-click on that file(pdf. Jpg etc whatever type it was allowed to be saved by QBO specs) in the Finder folder you chose to save it in, and as usually is the case, after an initial click on a file( blue highlighting,) we have additional options with a further right click. I scroll down to find the “quick action” we just created and it is now added for our Finder, likely in the Quick Action section…. In my case named “QBO Attachment Workaround”. With any luck, it will likely be near the very bottom of the list. If not, you will find it within the Quick Actions sub tab. When it’s selected and let go, that should now throw you back to your Safari browser, where a little popup tab is waiting to be clicked and opened. Don’t worry, that is the one created by steps 14 and 15 above, but I’d wait a few seconds. You might also see the file name in the browser tab and this should look like it used to look. It’s important to not “close” that downloaded tab until you’re done with it and are ready to move on, otherwise, you will need to go through the whole process again, right back to the save. I’ve designed this to remove the file to trash, right?
22. You should also verify your test when you are done by navigating back to the folder you initially saved the downloaded attachment to because that file should be gone and you should also be able to verify that by looking at the Trash folder to see it is now a recent added item, which we don’t need cluttering our drive.
23. This works for me and please use at your own risk. I have only used Automator to make repetitive tasks easier. This has nothing to do with Quickbooks.
24. It’s likely possible to use another browser but I don’t have one installed. My guess is you’d point the step.13 to the browser app that you use instead of Safari.
25. WARNING. If you ever right click a Finder file, and were to somehow slip up and fat-finger and slip to activate that “named” Quick Action, then it’s going to try and open a tab to view the file in your browser, then delete it from whatever folder you were in. It will be in your Trash and you can choose the “put back” option found in Trash to retrieve it.
Hope this works for you.Roland12
Regards
Old Toad