iCreate - UK (2021-07)

Automator

Developer

Apple Inc

Difficulty

Time

needed

Track an Apple device’s location history using

Find My, and by taking timed screenshots

Track AirTags and devices with

auto screenshots

See where your Apple devices and AirTags have been, not just

where they are right now

A

pple’s Find My service is a shining

example of how to track devices. Thanks

to the huge network of iPhones, you

can see the location of AirTags and other Apple

devices in the Find My app. However, one missing

feature is location history – you can see where

AirTags and devices are right now, but you cannot

tell where they have been.

To work around this, you can save a screenshot

of Find My showing where something is now,

then later take another screenshot to see its

new location. This way, the location is tracked

in images. However, here we show you an

Automator script that does it automatically.

10

Take timed screenshots

Anatomy of an Automator app

Test your app

This app is designed to run for several

hours, taking screenshots for you.

Test it by setting the interval to ten

seconds, and loop it for one minute.

A test run also enables you to allow

macOS permissions like taking

screenshots and saving files. Go to

System Preferencesand prevent the

Mac from sleeping or blanking the

screen, or it won’t work.

Knowledge base

Take a screenshot

This Automator action takes screenshots of the

desktop. Using the ‘Timed’ option, it can take

them after a delay, and the time is entered here.

Choose the file to save the screenshot image to.

Get Finder Items

This workswith thefollowing

action, and ‘Get Specified

Finder Items’ gets the name

and path of a file. It then

passes it to the next action in

a suitable format. Here, it gets

a screenshot.

Rename files

‘Rename Finder Items’does

exactly what the name says,

but which file does it rename?

The one passed to it by the

previous action. Use the hour,

minute and second to create a

unique filename.

Looping actions

Sometimes you may want

to repeat actions. Luckily,

‘Loop’ does that. Set it to loop

automatically and choose

when to stop. A spinning

gear menu bar icon shows it

running. Click it to stop it.