Something I’ve been doing quite a bit lately on my Mac is downloading new software in the form .dmg files and copying the .app file in the disk image to my Applications folder. I wanted a nice little shortcut for quickly copying something to the Applications folder – something akin to the “Send To” feature that exists in Windows context menus.

I ended up creating this Automator workflow.

Automator is interesting. It allows you to graphically string together some actions and create a quick little “workflow” or script. As far as I can tell, it does similar things to what AppleScript can do, except that AppleScript is more like programming and Automator lets you construct your workflows more graphically. You can also save your workflow as a plugin which lets it work in a number of applications that support workflow plugins. For instance, for my workflow, I saved it as a Finder plugin and then it appears in the Automator context menu when I right click on a file in Finder.