Mac OS automator workflow for getting direct link to @CloudApp uploads

I use CloudApp a lot to share files, mostly images. I often use the image links in blogposts that I write in MarkDown.

Unfortunately, the CloudApp application on my Mac copies a URL to the clipboard that refers to a page on their site and not the direct link to the file itself, making it more difficult to directly paste it as an image reference for the MarkDown syntax.

So I fiddled a bit with Automator and some AppleScript to create a service that will copy the direct link to the clipboard.

You can download it by clicking on the title of this post. This will bring you to CloudApp (not the direct link ;-)) with a zip file containing the Automator workflow.

You need to have Safari, the Cloud app and Growl installed on your Mac for it to work.

As I am new to writing Automator workflows and AppleScript, this may be a very clumsy workflow, but it works. Currently it is used as a finder service working on image files only but you can adapt it to any kind of file.

Usage: select a file in the finder, get the context menu and select “Services”, then “Upload to CloudApp with direct link”.

Should you be able to optimize it, let me know.