Copy file to multiple Finder folders

[iamdannywyatt]

I gotta be honest, sometimes KM is the easiest thing to work with, sometimes the most basic thing seems to be the most confusing... sorry for the frustration, but I've been looking at this macro for the last 20 minutes and I just can't seem to understand what's wrong with it and it's really getting on my nerves...
(⌥ ⇧ ⌘ C is what I use to copy the path)

This is all I have, no other actions.
All I want is to select a group of folders, and send a file to all of those folders.
I don't understand what's wrong here...

EDIT: Ok so I tried removing the "Set Variable" action and it's now working, but I'm confused as to why it works without it, but not with? If the variable is set to the Clipboard, isn't the Clipboard supposed to change on every "pass" and update with the new path?

[Zabobon]

@iamdannywyatt

EDIT: Ok so I tried removing the "Set Variable" action and it's now working, but I'm confused as to why it works without it, but not with?

For the Macro to work all you need is something like:

The Variable Local_VarName already has the path to the folder so, you don't need to try and capture it again.

These are the two Actions that were messing it up:

The way the For Each works is not the same as you actually selecting/highlighting each item in the Finder so, simulating a keystroke is not gong to have the same effect as if you had manually selected the item and pressed the keystroke.

What your Macro was doing each time was pressing ⌥⇧⌘C (which did nothing) and then setting Local_VarName to whatever happened to be in the clipboard before the Macro was run.

That is why removing that set Variable Action allowed the Macro to work.

EDIT 1
When setting up a For Each Action a good way to see what will be stored in the Variable on each "pass" is to temporarily do something like the below:

EDIT 2
For future reference, if you did want the For Each to work as you first intended (to actually select each folder and highlight it in Finder so that you could press a keystroke or invoke a Finder Menu item) that can be done using the Action called Reveal File. This has the effect of highlighting the file or folder in the Finder just as if you had manually selected it.

[iamdannywyatt]

@Zabobon

The Variable Local_VarName already has the path to the folder so, you don't need to try and capture it again.

I didn't know that it would save the path automatically. Thank you.

@Zabobon

When setting up a For Each Action a good way to see what will be stored in the Variable on each "pass" is to temporarily do something like the below:

Thank you for the suggestion. Will save that as a Favorite action to make it easier

@Zabobon

For future reference, if you did want the For Each to work as you first intended (to actually select each folder and highlight it in Finder so that you could press a keystroke or invoke a Finder Menu item) that can be done using the Action called Reveal File. This has the effect of highlighting the file or folder in the Finder just as if you had manually selected it.

So in that case, if I used the first macro and just added the Reveal File before the Keystroke, that would work?

Thank you for the detailed info and help!

[Zabobon]

@iamdannywyatt

So in that case, if I used the first macro and just added the Reveal File before the Keystroke, that would work?

Yes, it should do (although you might need a pause to allow the System to catch up). But in that use case it would be just adding more steps when they aren't needed. There are other cases where it could be useful. I have a Macro that creates a new Folder with today's date as its name and I want to select/highlight that folder in Finder after it is created so that I can manually add text to its name.

[iamdannywyatt]

I see. Thanks for the extra info. Always learning a little bit more