Every day I use a handy service created with Automator to resize images exported from 4K footage to a smaller size. It’s easy to resize images in an app like Preview or Pixelmator, but using a service works better for me since it can batch resize multiple images in seconds, and it’s directly accessible from the Finder. Here’s how you can create your own handy image resizing service using Automator.

Step 1: Launch Automator.

Step 2: Select Service for the document type.

Step 3: Choose image files in the Services receives selected drop down box.

Step 4: Under Actions (on the left) select Files and Folders, and drag Get Specified Finder Items to the build area (right side).

Step 5: Under Actions select Photos, and drag Scale Images to the build area.

Video walkthrough

Step 6: Automator will prompt you to add an add a Copy Finder Items action to preserve original files in a separate folder. I choose not to do this, but if having backups of your images prior to resizing is important to you, it’s something to consider.

Step 7: In the Scale Images action panel, insert the width that you’d like to resize to. In my circumstances, I choose 1920, since I’m resizing 3840 x 2160 files. This will create a 1920 x 1080 image since I’m working with 16:9 input.

Step 8: Go to File → Save, and give the service a name in the Save service as box.

Step 9: Find an image file in Finder, right click, select Services, and choose the name of the service that you just created. The image will be automatically resized with no prompts or fanfare. You can even select multiple images at once, and resize them all in one fell swoop. Super handy for my workflow.

Automator is a very powerful app, and there are tons of ways to achieve the same end result. You can get really fancy with Automator, but I like to keep it simple and straight to the point with minimal user interaction. If you’re really pressed for time, you can also create a keyboard shortcut for the service that you create via System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Services.

Do you use services on your Mac? If so, what for?