How to easily copy the path of a file
Mac Tip #465, 01 December 2010

A mailing list buddy had a problem: she often had to store files on a shared drive and then email colleagues telling them where the file was exactly. She needed to send the file path. While it’s easy to see where a file is, it’s not easy to add that information to an email. Here’s a solution that takes the pain away. The Service I talk about is available for you to download — read on.

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Show the Path Bar

My Tip, View the Path of a File, explains how to see where a file is, by making sure the Path Bar is displayed.

This file is folders deep on an external hard drive.

In my screenshot here you can see that my Arts blog file is on an external Hard Drive named Pleiades inside a folder several folders deep. The file path is: /Volumes/Pleiades/Users - still a backup/miraz/Documents/2007/me/Arts-blog-interview 20061015 1249.1.mp3.

That’s definitely not the kind of thing you want to type in from memory — especially if you have to do it for numerous files, multiple times per day.

Applescript to the rescue

Another member of the mailing list quickly provided a couple of Applescripts that easily put the file path on the clipboard. That’s fantastic, if you know how to run Applescripts.

I have several articles about Applescript intended for total beginners:

1. Newbies Guide to Applescript (at my KnowIT blog);
2. Applescript 101;
3. Applescript 102;
4. Applescript 103.

Two click Service

In the interests of making the script below easier to work with I turned it into a Service, and have Michelle’s permission to offer it here. After you download the file, double click to expand it, then follow the instructions below.

• Put multiple file paths on clipboard.workflow (75Kb, zipped file)

Install a service

Put the expanded file (Put multiple file paths on clipboard.workflow) in this folder: /Users/[your username]/Library/Services.

Use a service

I choose the Service from the Contextual menu.

To copy the paths of one or more files:

1. Select one or more files in the Finder.
2. Go to Finder - Services - Put multiple file paths on clipboard (or use a keystroke, or Control (⌃) click on the file and choose the Service from the Services portion of the Contextual menu that appears).
3. Open your email or other document and paste in the file path from the clipboard as required.

Stop here, or read on if you’re interested in the actual Applescripts Michelle provided.

Copy the path of one file

Michelle’s first script allows you to select a single file. Run the script and it copies the path to the clipboard ready to paste into an email or other document:

tell application "Finder" to set the clipboard to the POSIX path of (the selection as alias)

Copy multiple file paths

If you have many files, you don’t need to copy the file paths one by one. Instead Michelle provided this script which works with one file, or many:

set the_items to {}

tell application "Finder" to set selected_items to the selection as alias list

repeat with i from 1 to count of the selected_items

copy (POSIX path of (item i of the selected_items)) to the end of the_items

end repeat

set text item delimiters to return

set the clipboard to the_items as text

Keyboard Maestro

Even easier than using a Service is to add one or both of the above scripts to Keyboard Maestro and assign a keystroke.

My thanks to Michelle Steiner for allowing me to use and write about these scripts. Tell us in the Comments how you’ve used this Tip.