Chapter 4 — Workstation-Side File Sync

Category: Infrastructure & Deployment Reading time: 5 minutes

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The Challenge

Zoom saves chat logs to ~/Documents/Zoom/ inside date-stamped subfolders. This directory is protected — background processes cannot access it without Full Disk Access, which is a significant security grant.

Solution: Automator Folder Action

Instead of a background daemon, the system uses Automator Folder Action. Folder Actions inherit the user’s file access permissions without requiring additional TCC grants.

How It Works

1. Zoom call ends → Zoom saves chat to ~/Documents/Zoom/<date> <time> <meeting>/chat.txt
2. Automator Folder Action on ~/Documents/Zoom/ detects the new subfolder
3. Action calls ~/scripts/sync-zoom-chats.sh with the new item paths as arguments
4. Script extracts the date from the folder name, renames the file, and rsyncs to the VM

The Sync Script

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

SENT_LOG="$HOME/.zoom-chat-synced"
REMOTE_HOST="n8n-automation"
REMOTE_USER="YOURUSERNAME"
REMOTE_DIR="/home/YOURUSERNAME/n8n/watch"
LOG_FILE="$HOME/.zoom-chat-sync.log"

exec >> "$LOG_FILE" 2>&1

touch "$SENT_LOG"

process_file() {
    local file="$1"
    local folder_name="$2"

    # Skip if already synced
    if grep -qxF "$file" "$SENT_LOG"; then
        return
    fi

    # Extract date from folder name (format: "2026-03-06 14.30.00 Meeting Name")
    local date_prefix
    date_prefix=$(echo "$folder_name" | grep -oE '^[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}' || true)

    if [ -z "$date_prefix" ]; then
        return
    fi

    local dest_name="${date_prefix}-zoom-chat.txt"

    if rsync -az "$file" "${REMOTE_USER}@${REMOTE_HOST}:${REMOTE_DIR}/${dest_name}"; then
        echo "$file" >> "$SENT_LOG"
    fi
}

for item in "$@"; do
    if [ -d "$item" ]; then
        sleep 3  # Wait for Zoom to finish writing
        folder_name=$(basename "$item")
        for file in "$item"/*.txt; do
            [ -f "$file" ] && process_file "$file" "$folder_name"
        done
    elif [ -f "$item" ] && [[ "$item" == *.txt ]]; then
        folder_name=$(basename "$(dirname "$item")")
        process_file "$item" "$folder_name"
    fi
done

Key Design Decisions

Idempotency via sent log: The script tracks synced files in ~/.zoom-chat-synced. This prevents duplicate syncs if the Folder Action fires multiple times. Clear this file to reprocess.

3-second sleep: Zoom writes the chat file asynchronously after the folder is created. The script waits 3 seconds to ensure the file is fully written before attempting to sync.

Date extraction from folder name: Zoom names folders as YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS Meeting Title. The script uses grep -oE to extract just the date prefix, which becomes the filename.

Flatten to single file: The original folder structure is discarded. The output is a single flat file named YYYY-MM-DD-zoom-chat.txt, which makes correlation with transcripts trivial.

Setup on Mac

1. Copy scripts/sync-zoom-chats.sh to ~/scripts/sync-zoom-chats.sh
2. chmod +x ~/scripts/sync-zoom-chats.sh
3. Create Automator Folder Action:
   • Open Automator → New → Folder Action
   • Set “Folder Action receives files and folders added to” → ~/Documents/Zoom
   • Add “Run Shell Script” action
   • Set shell to /bin/bash, pass input as arguments
   • Script content: ~/scripts/sync-zoom-chats.sh "$@"
   • Save as “Sync Zoom Chats”

Debugging

# Check sync log
cat ~/.zoom-chat-sync.log

# Check what's been synced
cat ~/.zoom-chat-synced

# Clear sync history to reprocess all files
> ~/.zoom-chat-synced