Get a list of open documents and their desktops on a mac?

November 13, 2017 11:19 AM

In order to prevent loss of state in the event of a crash, I periodically make a list of all my open windows and which desktop each one of them is on (~50 documents across 16 desktops), and then I date it. Is there a way I could automate this?

Could Applescript do this?

posted by zeek321 to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

I think the answer is "maybe." Start with this code to get a list of every open application:

tell application "System Events"
    set listOfProcesses to (name of every process where background only is false)
end tell

You'll have to look at the AppleScript dictionary of every application you use to see how to manipulate windows and the like. And of course not every application supports AppleScript.
posted by Ampersand692 at 11:41 AM on November 13, 2017

It wouldn't be a list, but perhaps automate screenshots of all the desktops and their windows?

(Forgive this likely not helpful additional comment, but jumpin cats your cognitive function is amazing to track that many open docs and desktops. Perhaps a different workflow with fewer concurrent things going on?)
posted by conscious matter at 8:04 AM on November 14, 2017