Mac Automation: Save websites to iPod for later

By Cory Bohon

iPods are great. They allow you to take your complete music library on-the-go, along with some iPod games, and movies. But what if you are in the middle of reading, say, your favorite blog (you know, us), and you want to go somewhere? Well, you certainly don't have to stop reading! I am going to show you how to use Automator to create a workflow that gets the current text from Safari and syncs it to your iPod as a new note.

Continue reading to learn how.
Creating the workflow
For this automation, you will need the following Automator actions (in the same order):

  • Get Current Webpage from Safari
  • Get Text from Webpage
  • New iPod Note
Let's tweak some of the settings for the "New iPod Note" action. Click the options button and select "Show this action when the workflow runs" as this will allow you to specify a new name for the note each time you run the workflow. If you would like to save your note by the current date, then you can do so when you run the workflow.

Saving the workflow
You can now save your Automator workflow so you will be able to use it when needed.

  1. Click File
  2. Click Save
  3. Choose "Application" from the "File Format" drop-down menu and specify a name
  4. Click Save

Running the workflow
To run your workflow, simply open up a new webpage in Safari (it works best when you only have one window and tab opened). Then navigate to the webpage you want to save to your iPod. Whenever you want to save, open the Automator application that you made before. The workflow will take a moment to process the page and retrieve the text. Once it's finished processing the webpage, a dialog will pop-up asking you how you want the iPod note to be saved. Type in a name (or click the "Use current date as name" checkbox) and click the Continue button.

Automator will take a couple of seconds to process the file and then place it on the iPod. You can then view the iPod note by going to Extras > Notes > and the name of your saved note. You can then finish reading your article!

Additional Notes
Please note that this doesn't work on the iPhone or iPod touch. In addition, follow these steps to remove notes from your iPod:

  1. Enable iPod disk use
  2. In either the sidebar of the Finder, or on your Mac's desktop, double-click on your iPod to view the contents
  3. Open the "Notes" folder
  4. Delete unwanted notes and empty the Trash

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