Video Tip: Send Email Attachments from Finder w/ an Automator Workflow!

You can watch a higher quality version of this video on YouTube, or on your AppleTV by searching for Mactips.org

This simple Automator tutorial will show you how to create a Finder plugin that will allow you to automatically attach any file to an email without having to drag anything or even open Mail.

All you have to do is launch Automator and select a custom workflow. You’ll need to search for 3 variables.

1) Get Selected Finder Items (then drag it into the work space)
2) New Mail Message (then drag it under the previous variable in the work space)
3) Add Attachments to Front Message (and again, drag under the previous 2 variables)

Now Run the workflow to test it out. If you get 3 green check marks, then select File>Save As Plugin…

Finally name your plugin (I named mind “Mail Attachment”) and make sure Finder is selected.

Everything should be set up, and you can now can control+click (or right-click if you have a two button mouse) on any file and select Automator>Mail Attachment to launch Mail and the file will be attached to a new blank email.

 
 

Submitted on August 26, 2008 at 9:11 am - Video Tip: Send Email Attachments from Finder w/ an Automator Workflow! was written by Michael - There have been 2 comments - Categorized in Finder Tips, Mail Tips, Video Tips

2 Responses to “Video Tip: Send Email Attachments from Finder w/ an Automator Workflow!”

1. 
   xxloverxx
   This is all very useful, but the simplest way is just to drag and drop the file in question onto the Mail icon in the dock. This creates a new email with the file as an attachment. August 26th, 2008 at 10:47 am
   
   
2. 
   Matthew M.
   Hey Michael, great tip! I did it, but I agree with.. um.. xxloverxx that I would never take the time to go to the more tab when I could just drag and drop. But one thing that could fix that is using an application like Butler or Quicksilver to create an hot key to launch it. What I did was save the Workflow as an application on the desktop, then created a new folder in Butler with its own hot key, then just dragged the "application" named Mail Attachment over, and ta-da! Now all I have to do to send an attachment is push command shift m, and it puts it in a new message! September 5th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
   
   

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