Thursday, September 29, 2005
Gmail Dropbox - A new Automator action
I quite often email myself stuff as a way of backing up the files offsite. I'm paranoid about it since a harddrive crash last year where I lost 3 years worth of photos, essays and MP3s. I've had a hunt around and I can't find an adequate commercial tool for automatically uploading stuff to Gmail. XMail Hard Drive, that I blogged yesterday doesn't really do what you need, because it uses a web interface, plus you have to divulge your Gmail password to them.
Having not written a single line of code in almost 20 years (not since writing text adventures in Basic on an Acorn Electron), I've hashed together an Automator workflow for OSX. Here's what is does:
1. You drag a file or folder onto the icon for the workflow. (Or single click a file, then double click the workflow icon).
2. It opens the Mail app and emails those files to your Gmail account
3. It gives the email the name Filestore, and Gmail files them under a label called Filestore, for when you need them back
To get it working you only need to add your gmail address in the address line of the workflow. You can adjust this using Automator. (If you don't already have Mail app configured to send mail, you have to set up POP mail in the Gmail preferences and configure Mail app to send emails via smtp.gmail.com, as per instructions in the Gmail help). To get the system working really well you also need to make a new filter in Gmail, to filter all messages that arrive with the title "Filestore" to be filtered into a label "Filestore". Despite my name for it "Gmail Dropbox" this Automator Action isn't really limited to Gmail, you could use it with Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail Beta. I'm calling this version 0.3. For reasons I can't explain, I can't seem to upload the directory via blogger. If you want to beta test my Automator action email me
and I'll send you a copy.
I quite often email myself stuff as a way of backing up the files offsite. I'm paranoid about it since a harddrive crash last year where I lost 3 years worth of photos, essays and MP3s. I've had a hunt around and I can't find an adequate commercial tool for automatically uploading stuff to Gmail. XMail Hard Drive, that I blogged yesterday doesn't really do what you need, because it uses a web interface, plus you have to divulge your Gmail password to them.
Having not written a single line of code in almost 20 years (not since writing text adventures in Basic on an Acorn Electron), I've hashed together an Automator workflow for OSX. Here's what is does:
1. You drag a file or folder onto the icon for the workflow. (Or single click a file, then double click the workflow icon).
2. It opens the Mail app and emails those files to your Gmail account
3. It gives the email the name Filestore, and Gmail files them under a label called Filestore, for when you need them back
To get it working you only need to add your gmail address in the address line of the workflow. You can adjust this using Automator. (If you don't already have Mail app configured to send mail, you have to set up POP mail in the Gmail preferences and configure Mail app to send emails via smtp.gmail.com, as per instructions in the Gmail help). To get the system working really well you also need to make a new filter in Gmail, to filter all messages that arrive with the title "Filestore" to be filtered into a label "Filestore". Despite my name for it "Gmail Dropbox" this Automator Action isn't really limited to Gmail, you could use it with Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail Beta. I'm calling this version 0.3. For reasons I can't explain, I can't seem to upload the directory via blogger. If you want to beta test my Automator action email me
and I'll send you a copy.
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