Quick Actions (Quick Tasks)
Quick Tasks are available in macOS Mojave and later. It lets you make quick edits to files right from Finder on the Mac. You set the tasks once and then you can apply them to files with one click. For example, a photo has different quick tasks than a text file. Apple has made a number of standard tasks available and depending on your installed apps or Apple scripts, more actions can be added. It is also possible to create your own quick task via Automator. We explain both options below, and we will create a simple task step by step later in this article.
- Activate quick tasks
- Quick tasks by file type
- Create your own Quick Task
Activate and manage quick tasks
There are two ways to use a quick task. You don’t necessarily have to configure an entire task first, because the Mac already offers some useful options by default. We’ll get into that later. We’ll start with how to actually use a quick task. That works like this:
- Open Finder and select a file.
- Right-click on the file and choose Quick Tasks. A side menu opens.
- Choose a quick task from the list. It can sometimes take a while for the task to complete, depending on the complexity and speed of your Mac.
If you’re using Finder’s Columns view, you’ll also always see available quick actions listed below the preview. You activate the Columns view via the toolbar in Finder.
To manage which quick tasks you see, go to your Mac’s System Settings. Then open the Privacy and security menu, followed by Extensions. Here you can choose Finder and indicate which quick tasks you want to use and which you don’t want to use. This does not apply to one specific file, but to all files where the quick tasks are applicable.
Quick tasks for different file types
As mentioned, the Mac already has some handy quick tasks built in as standard. However, that doesn’t mean you can apply them all to all files. The ‘Rotate video’ task obviously does not work with a text file. And making a PDF from a video is also not possible. Fortunately, your Mac is smart enough to only show tasks that you can actually use. This is built in by default:
- Rotate left (videos, images)
- Markups (images, pdfs)
- Create PDF (text files, images)
- Briefly (videos)
- Convert image (images)
- Remove background (images)
These built-in Quick Actions are useful, but the real power of the Quick Actions is that you can configure them from scratch. We’re going to look at that now.
Create your own Quick Task: Quickly resize an image
You can also create your own Quick Action. This is especially useful for tasks that you perform frequently. As an example, we’ll explain how this works if you want to resize an image. You can do that through the Preview app, but only one image at a time. By making this a quick task, you can apply it to hundreds of images at once. We explain step by step how to configure this task using the Automator program. That is how it works:
- Open the built-in Automator app.
- Click New Document.
- In the window that opens, choose Quick task as the type for your document.
- In the right column you will find a drop-down menu at the top under ‘Task sequence receives current’. Click Automatic (Text) and select Image Files.
- From the left column, select Files and Folders, and from the middle column, double-click Get Selected Finder Items.
- Go back to the left column and open Photos. Then double-click Enlarge/Reduce Image in the middle column. You will be asked if you want the files you modify in a separate folder, so that the original is not affected. The modified image will be placed in a separate folder. Decide for yourself if you think it’s necessary.
- In the right column, select the desired width in pixels in the Enlarge/reduce image section.
- Now save the quick task. Go to File from the menu bar and select Save. We chose to call this task ‘Image to 1280px’, because that is what the task does.
Obviously this was just an example and you could do a lot more. You could also change the name of the file and rotate the image a quarter turn. Take a look at the options in Automator to become familiar with all the possibilities.
With this handy Finder tip you can work a lot faster, if you apply it properly. It can also help to always put folders at the top in Finder. This way you can navigate through your files faster. You can read how to set this up in our tip.
