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In Automator or Applescript, is there a way to get the number items in a folder and save result to the Clipboard or Automator Variable so I can use it in the next Action?

3 Answers 3

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Here is a simple example, that also work if the folder is empty (return 0):

Get Folder content

The first shell script is :

wc -l

The second is :

sed -e 's/ //g'

The first script counts the number of lines and the second removes unnecessary spaces.

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  • you can also use the command "pbcopy" for writing into the clipboard menu. Oct 13, 2010 at 1:14
  • this is really nice. if only the loop action could take a variable...
    – bluefoot
    Aug 26, 2013 at 21:29
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In AppleScript:

local nitems
tell application "Finder" to set nitems to count of items in folder "mress HD:Users:allbery:Desktop"
set the clipboard to (nitems as Unicode text)

Finder still uses Carbon-style paths, as shown above; to convert requires something silly like

local nitems
local fpath
tell application "System Events" to set fpath to path of disk item "/Users/allbery/Desktop"
tell application "Finder" to set nitems to count of items in folder fpath
set the clipboard to (nitems as Unicode text)
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  • You could instead use tell application "Finder" to set nitems to count of items in folder (POSIX file "/Users/danielbeck/Desktop")
    – Daniel Beck
    Mar 16, 2011 at 6:23
  • Hm, I thought I'd tried that and it whined at me about an illegal attribute.
    – geekosaur
    Mar 16, 2011 at 6:25
  • Works like a charm for me. Didn't even have to use as alias, as I came to expect.
    – Daniel Beck
    Mar 16, 2011 at 6:31
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In just Applescript:

-- set fold to choose folder
tell app "Finder"
    set sel to selection
    set fold to item 1 of sel
    set n to count fold -- count items of entire contents of fold
end tell
-- set the clipboard to n as text
-- display dialog n

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