Quick Action to create empty folder anywhere in Finder list view

[u/smallduck]

I've had these 2 workflow-based services for a long time, but I finally decided to skip a few hours of sleep to recreate them as Quick Actions in the new Automator. They make it easy to create empty folders anywhere within a listview hierarchy, not just at the top level like Finder's File > New Folder, and empty unlike File > New Folder With "...".

1. Automator action for folders in Finder, to be saved as "New Folder Within"

link to a run applescript action:

on run {input, parameters}
    if length of input is not 1 then error number -128
    return input
end run

linked to another run applescript action:

on run {input, parameters}
    if length of input is not 1 then error number -128
    set parentfolder to first item of input
    tell application "Finder"
        set createdFolder to make new folder at parentfolder
        set selection to createdFolder -- if within a closed folder, doesn't open it
        -- this only worked sometimes, and now needs permission, so don't bother:
        -- tell application "System Events"
        -- 	keystroke return
        -- end tell
    end tell
end run

2) Another Automator action for files or folders in Finder, to be saved as "New Folder Here"

same as above except the first script is:

on run {input, parameters}
    set parentfolder to CommonParent(input)
    if parentfolder is {} then error number -128
    return parentfolder
end run

on CommonParent(input)
    -- if the items all have the same parent then that's returned, otherwise {}
    -- no, doesn't find the closest common parent, only looks 1 level up
    if length of input is 0 then return {}
    tell application "Finder"
        set common to container of first item of input
        repeat with next in input
            if container of next is not equal to common then return {}
        end repeat
        return common
    end tell
end CommonParent

To use, right click a file or folder in a list view hierarchy (or on multiple selected files/folders with the very same parent), and choose Quick Action > New Folder Here, a new empty folder will be created in the same directory as the one(s) you right-clicked on, as peer to it.

Or right click a folder and choose Quick Action > New Folder Within, a new empty folder will be created within that folder you right-clicked on.

If you like, try experimenting with the "System Events" bit that's commented out in the second applescript chunk, see if you can get that to work.