OS X Automator action for url in Safari

Question

I have created an automator workflow for urls in Safari. The workflow is available when I select the url in the toolbar and right-click on it.

However, when I right-click on an anchor tag anywhere on the web page, the automator action for the url is not available. Only actions for text are displayed. I suspect that automator is looking at the label of the anchor tag and not the url itself.

Is there a way to start an automator action for an url when right-clicking a link from a web page in Safari ?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, selected links on a web page are not seen as "URLs" in Automator.

A workaround is to design your action to ignore input and use the "Get Contents of Clipboard" action instead. Assign a shortcut to your automator action in System Preferences. Then use "Copy Link" when you right-click the link and hit your shortcut key. Yes, it's an extra step, alas.

Answer 2

For browser automation on the Mac I highly recommend the iMacros for Firefox and iMacros for Chrome addons (the Firefox one is more powerful). These are popular free browser addons that work like an "Automator" (macro recorder) specifically for web browsing!

You can use them for automated form filling, logins, up/downloads etc pp.