Can Alfred Copy a Folder to another location?

[MaryThompson]

I just got Alfred yesterday.  Before I spend any more time banging my head against the wall trying to figure this out, I should ask if it's even possible.

 

I am hoping to make Alfred copy a specific folder from one location to another, for backup purposes.  But looking at all the workflow programming objects I don't see a simple or obvious way to get Alfred to do this rather simple task.

 

(In fact, I'm underwhelmed with the documentation for how to program workflows and what all the components do... It's opaque and baffling.  My husband is a programmer and computer systems guy and he didn't understand it, either.)

 

Anyway, I'd like to type in "backup" and have Alfred copy a specific folder to another specific folder.  Can someone please explain to me like I'm five... or point me to a explanation...     I'm not asking for a full workflow already done (unless it already exists).  

 

First:  Is this possible?

Secondly:  Give me some clues to how it can be done.

 

Thanks,

Mary.

 

 

[deanishe]

1 hour ago, MaryThompson said:

But looking at all the workflow programming objects I don't see a simple or obvious way to get Alfred to do this rather simple task.

 

Alfred isn't trying to be a comprehensive drag-and-drop development environment. You're going to need to put some code in a Run Script Action even for a lot of "simple" things.

 

To copy files, you can just put cp -rf /path/to/source /path/to/dest in a Run Script with Language = /bin/zsh.

 

Or if you want to use Apple's APIs, here's a workflow I wrote to duplicate the selected files, whose code you could easily adapt.

 

1 hour ago, MaryThompson said:

In fact, I'm underwhelmed with the documentation for how to program workflows and what all the components do... It's opaque and baffling.

 

Have a look at the included example workflows. If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them.