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Automate Cocktail

# Automator actions

Cocktail ships with a set of Automator actions ready for your use. Automator is an application that comes bundled with OS X and provides the possibility to create workflows for automating repetitive tasks. Automator workflows is created by drag-and-drop of existing actions. Since Automator is a Apple application Automator workflows can then be integrated into OS X i.e. by creating a Finder plug-in, save your workflow as an application or as an Automator workflow for future use. The integration with Automator provides the possibility to take use of Cocktails features even without running the Cocktail application, something that is very useful when i.e. creating maintenance scripts.
The following actions are delivered with Cocktail for you to use:

- Clear Applications Caches
- Clear Internet Caches
- Clear Log Files
- Clear System Caches
- Clear User Caches
- Delete DS Store Files
- Delete Localization Files
- Force Empty Trash
- Log Out
- Purge Inactive Memory
- Put To Sleep
- Rebuild Help Database
- Rebuild Launch Services Database
- Rebuild Mail's Envelope Index
- Repair Disk Permission
- Restart
- Run Daily Script
- Run Monthly Script
- Run Weekly Script
- Shut Down
- Update Locate Database
- Update Whatis Database

The following example provides a quick introduction on how to use Cocktail's Automator actions in an Automator workflow and how to use the workflow in OS X. With Automator and Cocktail's actions it is possible to use Cocktail features as for example deleting DS Store files directly from the Finder. This is a nifty tool when working on non-Mac network volumes.

Example of Cocktail's integration with Automator:

1. Start Automator
2. As starting point choose "File & Folder".
3. Get the contents from my Mac and use files & folder selected in the Finder when workflow runs.
4. In the Smart Group "Cocktail" you find a list of Cocktail's actions
5. Drag the Delete DS Store Files action under the Get Selected Finder Items action.
6. Save the workflow as Plug-in for Finder with the a descriptive name i.e. "Delete DS Store files".
7. Go to a folder with a DS Store file you want to delete
8. In the folder ctrl click and from the more menu choose Automator and there at the bottom the newly created workflow shall be visible.
9. Choose to run the workflow and your done.