Hazel can also find folder items using some metadata of its own-the program tracks the specific time and date each item is added to a folder and the last time items in a folder were matched by a Hazel rule. It would be nice if some of the more-obvious criteria, such as file extension, provided a pop-up menu for choosing common criteria, but you have to manually type everything. You can use these types of metadata with all the usual operands: is, is not, contains, and so on. The default pop-up list includes obvious criteria such as name, extension, and kind, but choosing the Other option lets you use any kind of Spotlight metadata, including such iTunes tags as Album and Year Recorded. (Hazel supports Growl, so you can keep track of when rules execute.)įiles and subfolders can be selected by almost any feature you can imagine.
#HAZEL FOR MAC PLUS#
To add a rule, you click the plus sign (+), which presents you with a window that will be familiar to anyone who’s built rules in Mail: First you give the rule a name, then you define which items the rule will apply to, then you define the actions the rule will perform. To the right is a Rules box that tells Hazel what to do with files inside the selected folder. Open Hazel’s pane in System Preferences, and you’ll see a box on the left where you can select and add folders (only standard folders-you can’t use Smart Folders, which essentially duplicate Hazel’s file-filtering features). It duplicates the functionality of Folder Actions without requiring AppleScript or Automator, and it includes simple yet powerful filtering for restricting actions to specific files. Folder Actions are a great idea, but they have two problems: They require AppleScript or Automator, which many Mac users don’t want (or know how) to use and they’re a bit of a blunt tool, applying to every item in a folder unless you specifically include filters in your script or workflow.
#HAZEL FOR MAC MAC OS#
Mac OS X’s Folder Actions feature lets you assign AppleScripts or Automator workflows to specific folders in order to automate file-management chores such as renaming files or resizing images.
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