Hazel Changelog

What's new in Hazel 5.3.4

Apr 25, 2024

Fixed throwing away of files on external volumes when the volume does not have its own trash. Should now behave like pre-5.3.3 where such files would end up in the home trash instead of failing outright.

New in Hazel 5.3.3 (Mar 27, 2024)

New in Hazel 5.3.2 (Jan 26, 2024)

New in Hazel 5.3.1 (Dec 7, 2023)

New in Hazel 5.3 (Dec 5, 2023)

New in Hazel 5.2.2 (May 30, 2023)

New in Hazel 5.2.1 (Mar 30, 2023)

New in Hazel 5.2 (Nov 2, 2022)

New in Hazel 5.1.4 (Jul 15, 2022)

New in Hazel 5.1.3 (Jul 8, 2022)

New in Hazel 5.1.2 (May 5, 2022)

New features:
On Monterey, Hazel can read the contents of Markdown files for "Contents contain match" conditions.
User interface changes:
Folder paused state should be reflected correctly in the menubar menu now.
Fixed loop when trying to preview an invalid folder.
Fixed folder groups disappearing.
Folder group name changes should be properly saved now.
Fixed main editor not being updated when changes to the rule were saved via a detached editor.
Fixed preview not updating status when a rule was reverted.
Fixed case where custom attributes were being orphaned.
Fixed issue with undo/redo of attribute deletion from a pattern.
Fixed the Apple/JavaScript input/output attributes editor not updating when attributes were deleted or renamed.
When editing a number format, the example number should now update to reflect the current setting.
In the "Insert Element" contextual menu, fixed custom tokens not appearing correctly.
In the "Insert Element" contextual menu, fixed menu items growing each time the menu was brought up.
After using a tag field, sometimes other pattern fields would act like a tag field when edited. This should be fixed.
Numerous cosmetic fixes.
VoiceOver fixes for the following issues:
Not being able to trigger contextual menu in the folder list.
No descriptions/labels for layout buttons in preferences.
After dismissing the pattern editor, focus will move to the previous or next element instead of staying on the pattern field, which was not supposed to be editable without the pattern editor popover.
VO not working for certain text fields, like the notes field or script editors.
Core changes:
Empty dates now return nothing instead of using a certain date in the past. This should now allow you to set a default value should a date be empty. If your rules rely on showing a date no matter what, set one as the default.
Fixed "Tags do not contains tags" condition. Was evaluating to true if any one of the tags listed was not set on the file. Now only passes the condition if none of the tags are set.
Various internal fixes.

New in Hazel 5.1.1 (Nov 19, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.1 (Nov 9, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.0.7 (May 18, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.0.6 (Mar 3, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.0.5 (Feb 10, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.0.4 (Feb 10, 2021)

New features:
New "Treat as Path" option for text-based attributes. In "Sort into subfolder" patterns, you can now tell Hazel to treat the attribute as a path, specifying which character to use as the path separator. This is particularly useful when used in conjunction with the table feature, where you can specify a column which contains various subfolders to file things into.
User interface changes:
Fixed various layout issues with the folder list.
Fixed layout with the search toolbar item. Now takes into account its width when its expanded, which should address issues when using layout 3 for the main window.
Rule actions should now take up more of the available horizontal space.
Folder and rule lists now use the "inset" style on Big Sur.
Fixed certain rule changes not registering.
Fixed the active flag getting cleared when rule is saved.
Fixed sync options not being available if the sync file is on a drive that is not available at the time.
The feature where Hazel would ask to select a new folder if the original folder no longer exists has been added back in. Was lost in the version 4->5 transition.
Fixed rule save/revert buttons scrolling out of view in certain cases.
Fixed undo for enabling/disabling rules.
With a search active, newly created/added rules will remain visible even if they don't match the current search. Will disappear if the search text is changed and they do not match the new search criteria.
You should no longer be able to create a new rule while the current one is unsaved.
Alert when leaving an unsaved rule now has an option to save.
Fixed rules not refreshing after changes to the sync settings.
Rule status will now be brought forward whenever toolbar/menu item is invoked.
Fixed some threading issues with Rule Status which would cause various glitches.
Rule status should show updated file list when it is refreshed.
Fixed file list in Rule Status not being sorted in some cases.
Fixed crash when setting a table to use the first row for column names and the table file is empty.
Fixed crash when using non-custom attributes as inputs to an Apple/JavaScript.
Keyboard navigation should now work in the "Replace Text" window.
Fixed display issues when doing "Expand All".
Numerous other UI fixes and tweaks.
Core changes:
Fixed start/stop state of background process not being observed/saved between machine reboots.
Several changes made that should address AppSweep not triggering in certain cases.
Fixed "is among the" type conditions when used in conjunction with certain types of conditions.
Fixed using "starts with/ends with" with a custom attribute on the left-hand side of a condition.
Import into TV action should no longer incorrectly report an error when successfully importing into the Library.
Various internal fixes.

New in Hazel 5.0.3 (Feb 10, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.0.2 (Feb 10, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.0.1 (Feb 10, 2021)

New in Hazel 5.0 (Feb 10, 2021)

New features:
Hazel is now an app, instead of a preference pane. Note that on first run, Hazel will remove the old preference pane. No settings should be affected and your rules will carry over.
Hazel features a new user interface. The folder list, rule list and rule editor are all in one window now.
Added custom list item attributes. These attributes allow you to match against an item in a list that you define. The list can either be entered directly in Hazel or loaded in from a file.
Added custom table attributes. These attributes allow you to match against an item in a table. Once matched, any subsequent uses of that custom attribute will match against the same row, but it doesn't have to be the same column. You can use this to match one thing and then use a corresponding thing elsewhere, either in a condition or action.
The folder list supports folder groups.
Rule editors can be detached so you can view multiple rules at time.
The rule status interface is now a standalone window. While it does update as you change folders, you will still need to manually refresh it to catch any changes to rules or files.
Preview mode will stick while navigating between different rules in the same ruleset.
New UI guide for giving Hazel full disk access.
Big Sur support.
Support for Macs with Apple silicon. Note that this has not been tested as thoroughly.
Bunches of other improvements.
User interface changes:
Because of the major UI changes, many things have been moved around, including:
Trash options are now in preferences.
Folder options have their own window. You can access them via the menu or toolbar item (it is not in the toolbar by default but you can add it).
Buttons to add folders/rules have been moved to the toolbar. To delete items, you can hit the delete key or use the "Delete" menu item under "Edit"
Rule preview is accessible via the "Rule" menu instead of a dedicated button in the interface.
Fixed crash when using keyboard navigation in some popovers.
Fixed rule preview now showing any values for attributes when the condition is a "negative" one (like "is not blank").
Various other tweaks and fixes.
Core changes:
Fixed bug that would sometimes occur when matching month names that have a dot in them. Some regions will use a dot in the abbreviated form of the month.
Fixed issue with scheduling using "Current time" when trying to catch it within a 5 minute interval.
When checking whether a thrown-away app is the last copy on the system, AppSweep should ignore secondary drives with macOS installs on them .
Numerous updates and fixes.

New in Hazel 4.4.5 (May 28, 2020)

New in Hazel 4.4.4 (Dec 24, 2019)

New in Hazel 4.4.3 (Dec 17, 2019)

New in Hazel 4.4.2 (Nov 8, 2019)

New in Hazel 4.4.1 (Nov 4, 2019)

New in Hazel 4.4 (Oct 29, 2019)

New in Hazel 4.3.5 (Apr 14, 2019)

New in Hazel 4.3.4 (Jan 26, 2019)

New in Hazel 4.3.3 (Nov 9, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.3.2 (Oct 2, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.3.1 (Sep 26, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.9 (Aug 30, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.8 (Jul 20, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.7 (Jul 17, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.6 (Jun 13, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.5 (May 25, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.4 (Mar 10, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.3 (Mar 1, 2018)

New in Hazel 4.2.2 (Oct 21, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.2.1 (Sep 29, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.2 (Sep 27, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.1.4 (Jun 29, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.1.3 Build 1524 (Jun 5, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.1.2 Build 1524 (May 19, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.1.1 Build 1524 (May 16, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.1 Build 1524 (May 15, 2017)

New Features:
New in-app help/manual. Hazel's help has been reorganized and rewritten. It should be more comprehensive and easier to navigate.
"Smart" date matching. Custom date attributes now have the option of automatically detecting dates in various formats.
Can now match a file based on attributes of another file in the same folder. This is accessible via the target pop-up in nested conditions.
Preview popovers can be torn off, thus allow you to view it while editing a condition. Especially useful for editing/previewing patterns.
Added new match tokens for "any non-blank character(s)".
New option to set a default value for attributes. If the attribute ends up being blank, the default value you set will be used in its place.
Preview of "Contents" will highlight matched text.
Added "Capture date" attribute for image files. Can be accessed in the list of Spotlight attributes.
Rule status UI now shows color labels/tags for files like in Finder.
User interface changes:
Pop-up for destination folders no longer shows all referenced folders. The list is now limited to the last 8 accessed.
Fetching iTunes library information should be faster and also no longer requires that iTunes share its XML file.
Fixed hang when bringing up open panel to select file to preview. Seemed to occur in cases where there were symbolic links in the path.
Fixed attributes not displaying any adjustment statuses (like if there are any text replacements or numerical adjustments).
Fixed list of available custom attributes being cut-off after the third one.
Fixed color label picker in conditions being too large and therefore getting cut off.
"Replace text" window is no longer cut-off at the bottom when first brought up.
Selecting "any month" in the recurrence picker now properly resets any other months that were previously selected.
Updated look of the server browser.
Dropped support for Flock and Camino as neither are developed anymore.
Numerous minor fixes and tweaks.
Core changes:
Added support for iCloud trash folder.
"is (not) among the" now works in conjunction with other conditions it is ANDed with. For instance, if you have "Kind is PDF AND Date added is among the last 1 most recent", the "is among the" condition will match the most recent PDF file. Previously, it would have matched the most recent file, ignoring other conditions.
Existing rules will be converted to preserve the old behavior by putting "is among the" conditions in their own nested conditions. Make sure to edit those rules if you'd like to adopt the new behavior.
Hazel no longer ignores locked files, allowing rules using non-modifying actions (like copy) to process them. Locked files will fail if the action tries to modify/move the file.
Fixed log rotation not happening if machine is turned off at the scheduled time.
Various other fixes.

New in Hazel 4.0.9 Build 1524 (Mar 7, 2017)

New in Hazel 4.0.8 Build 1524 (Nov 16, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0.7 Build 1522 (Oct 24, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0.6 Build 1517 (Sep 20, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0.5 Build 1508 (Aug 3, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0.4 Build 1502 (Jul 19, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0.3 Build 1495 (Jul 12, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0.2 Build 1483 (Jun 7, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0.1 Build 1459 (May 5, 2016)

New in Hazel 4.0 Build 1456 (May 4, 2016)

New Features:
Live rule preview. When editing a rule, you can pick a file to preview against and see how the rule's conditions match that file while editing.
Rule syncing. You can now sync rules to a specific file. This can be done for multiple folders on the same machine, or across machines by using a file cloud service (Dropbox, iCloud Drive, etc.). Sync options are available via the gear pulldown.
Old rule preview interface expanded to a status interface. For files already processed, will show rule that matched and the last matched date. If there was an error, it will be displayed instead.
Smart folders can now be monitored and have rules applied to their contents. Works like regular folders except that you cannot perform operations involving going into or matching subfiles/subfolders.
Rule search added. Entering search terms in the field will search across various fields in the rule and filter the rule list as appropriate.
New "Toggle extension" action to show/hide a file's extension.
"Display Notification" action now has option to play a sound.
"anything" (…) attribute now available in "Sort into subfolder" patterns. This allows you to sort into an existing folder based on only part of the folder name. When using this, note that the folder cannot be created for you automatically.
Improvements to "counter" attribute:
Added option to use lowest number available. Default is still to always increase.
Added option to use letters instead of numbers.
Added new "monitored folder" as a destination for move/copy operations. Represents the top level folder being monitored by Hazel. Especially useful for rules that are synced, where the monitored folder varies and cannot be hardcoded.
When using list-based attributes in a format pattern, you can pick any element (1st, 2nd 3rd, etc.) starting from the beginning or end of the list. Previously could only pick all items, the first item or the last item.
Introduced pop-up help text in a couple places to help point out less-used features.
Can now show invisible characters when editing patterns. Use command-shift-i to toggle it on and off.
Requires 10.10 (Yosemite).
User interface changes:
Notification options moved from gear pulldown to the "Info" section. They are app-wide settings, not per-folder, so it made more sense to put them there.
Rules that are moved between folders will be deactivated. Likewise, if a rule is copied, the copy will be deactivated. This is to prevent cases where you want to move/copy then edit the rule in the new folder. There is a window of time between the copy and the edit where Hazel can run using the temporarily unwanted version of the rule. The rule can be re-enabled by clicking its checkbox at the new location.
Canceling rule edits will bring up a warning if changes have been made.
Can now edit server settings for the Upload action.
Fixed dragging of conditions/actions being glitchy in certain cases on El Capitan. In the process, also made it smoother overall.
Attributes which are lists of dates now have their own set of operators. Previously used the same operators as single dates which didn't actually work when the rule was evaluated.
Rule window is now resizable horizontally.
Replace text window is now resizable.
Added some instructional notes to sample rules.
Updated app and document icons.
"Reveal in Finder" action and contextual menus now "Show in Finder" to reflect current verbiage in OS X.
When deleting a custom attribute, if it was in use, an alert would be shown. If you clicked cancel, the deleted attribute would not come back. This has been fixed.
Fixed rare case where the rule window comes up too short, cutting off the action at the bottom.
Fixes to tag field behavior.
Fixed a couple of hangs.
Got rid of duplicate entries in the pop-up for selecting AppleScripts/JavaScripts.
Various tweaks and fixes.
Core changes::
Fixed rules using "is among the..." not running in certain cases.
Text replacements now work on numeric attributes.
Now uses more specific file events making processing a bit more efficient as only files/folders involved in a change are processed.
Fixed move/copy across volumes failing when there is an issue being able to acquire a temporary space to copy the file.
Fixed case where error status on a file was not being cleared if the file ended up matching no rules.
Rule evaluation engine will now forgo certain optimizations to ensure any custom attributes that can be matched will be.
Improved loop detection. Should hopefully prevent some cases which will become even more common with the new Smart Folder support.
Fixed throwing away duplicates function only working on the top level folder and not in subfolders.
Worker process will now reload rules between loops to catch any changes to rules.
Fixed case where prediction time may not be assigned correctly.
Small changes to make rules a bit less dependent on aspects of any specific host when synced or exported.
Fixed errors in various places where an Apple/JavaScript would export a nil/missing value for a custom attribute.
Numerous internal fixes, updates and cleanups.

New in Hazel 3.3.8 Build 1321 (Apr 5, 2016)

New in Hazel 3.3.7 Build 1321 (Jan 8, 2016)

New in Hazel 3.3.6 Build 1269 (Nov 20, 2015)

New in Hazel 3.3.5 Build 1244 (Apr 22, 2015)

New in Hazel 3.3.4 Build 1232 (Feb 11, 2015)

New in Hazel 3.3.3 Build 1227 (Dec 8, 2014)

New in Hazel 3.3.2 Build 1215 (Nov 4, 2014)

New in Hazel 3.3.1 Build 1200 (Oct 27, 2014)

New in Hazel 3.3 Build 1196 (Oct 21, 2014)

New features:
Files can now match multiple rules. Use the new "Continue" action to have Hazel continue evaluating rules if the current rule matches and hasn't been moved out of its folder.
Conditions can now use custom attributes defined in earlier conditions. This means:
Custom attributes now appear in the attribute pop-up. You can create conditions based on your custom attributes just like the built-in attributes.
Custom attributes can be used in match patterns in conditions. When doing this, the first instance of the custom attribute to match has its value captured. Any subsequent usage of that custom attribute must match that captured value. For instance, if you have a custom attribute that matches the text "blah", subsequent conditions which try and match that attribute must match the text "blah" as well, ignoring whatever pattern you set on it. The same goes for custom date attributes, though in that case, the pattern for the date is still used to parse it; the resulting date must be the same as the captured one. See the help for some examples.
Added "did change" operator. You can now monitor whether an attribute changed without knowing what it changed from or to.
AppleScripts are now passed in an extra argument, which is a list of custom attribute values. You can specify in the interface which attributes you want Hazel to send in.
AppleScripts in conditions can now export custom attributes as they already can in actions currently.
On 10.10, you can now use JavaScript in addition to AppleScript. JavaScript can be used wherever AppleScript can and has the same capabilities.
The preview now shows how a file matches against all possible rules. Also, if a rule failed to match, the field(s) which caused it to fail will be highlighted in red.
Pressing the spacebar in the preview brings up QuickLook for the selected file.
User interface changes:
New graphics and icons.
Cosmetic changes for 10.10 (Yosemite).
Fixed various erratic behaviors with tag fields.
Various VoiceOver fixes.
Numerous tweaks and fixes.
Core changes:
The Upload action can now properly upload whole folders, not just individual files.
Various fixes to upload code.
Fixed the Unarchive action not working on certain archive files.
Fixed issue with Hazel not being able to add folders beyond a certain limit.
Re-worked storage of internal file aliases which should allow Hazel to better track changes when rules/settings are transferred across accounts.
Fixed engine sometimes not being triggered when events arrive while it is in the midst of processing the folder.
Tweaked AppSweep algorithm to prevent some false positives.
Worked around Apple bug where color tag was being re-applied when doing a Remove tag then Add tag action in the same rule on pre-10.10 systems (issue is fixed in 10.10).
Fixes O'Plenty.

New in Hazel 3.2.7 Build 1099 (Apr 9, 2014)

New in Hazel 3.2.6 Build 1098 (Apr 8, 2014)

New in Hazel 3.2.5 Build 1086 (Feb 12, 2014)

New in Hazel 3.2.4 Build 1082 (Feb 6, 2014)

New in Hazel 3.2.3 Build 1077 (Dec 17, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.2.2 Build 1063 (Nov 21, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.2.1 Build 1049 (Oct 28, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.2 Build 1046 (Oct 24, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.1.5 Build 1038 (Aug 22, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.1.4 Build 1037 (Aug 16, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.1.3 Build 1030 (Jul 26, 2013)

User interface changes:
The connection panel now has a path field to optionally set the initial folder to start in when you browse the server. This should allow you to bypass folders which you may not have permission to view.
You can now enter an URL in the server field in the connection panel. When you tab out of the field, it will use the elements of the URL to autofill the rest of the fields for you.
The remote open panel should do a much better job at determining which folders are packages. False positives were making it such that some folders could not be navigated into.
After creating a new folder in the remote open panel, the new folder should now be selected.
When matching against contents, a space character now also includes line separators. As a result, patterns can now span lines wherever you use a space character in your pattern.
Fixed options for certain actions not sticking.
No longer display an underline in the formatting options for the single digit case for date components as it was confusing people into thinking it would only parse or display a single digit (it actually indicates the minimum number of digits, not maximum). The two digit case still shows an underline under both digits to indicate that single digit values will be zero padded.
Fixed duplicate entries in the server pop-up for the Upload action.
Replace text option should now be available for all tokens.
Added some missing accessibility/VoiceOver labels.
Miscellaneous tweaks and fixes.
Core changes:
Numerous fixes to the upload/connection code, including specific fixes for WebDAV support.
Fixed handling of symlinks.
Content matching should now work consistently with text with accented characters.
If the region setting is not English, date tokens will match English months in addition to months in the current region setting.
Fixed infinite loop when formatting certain odd characters.
Fixed date/custom tokens which didn't match still having a value.
Should no longer crash if a script ends up removing the file being processed.
Fixed an issue with keychain handling.
Various other fixes.

New in Hazel 3.1.2 Build 1014 (Jul 2, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.1.1 Build 996 (Jun 22, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.1 Build 990 (Jun 19, 2013)

New Features:
Added new "Upload" action to upload files via FTP/SFTP/WebDAV
Can now use patterns to match against and extract a file's contents. Note that this only works for certain file types like PDF and certain text formats (if it can be properly viewed by TextEdit, chances are it will work).
Added a custom date token type. Can use it to match dates in text and then be used as a date in other patterns.
Rules can have notes/descriptions added.
Move/copy/upload actions now have an option to copy over the folder structure. This is akin to using the "source folder" attribute but the hope is that that attribute can be phased out in the future in favor of this, which is much easier.
New option to not overwrite the existing file when copying/moving/uploading.
User interface changes:
Removed the condition target pop-up from the main rule interface as it was causing too much confusion and was being used incorrectly by novices. It is now only accessible via a nested condition. Rules that currently use it will have an extra nesting level added but should behave the same. Also, as a result of this, there is an extra level of nesting allowed.
You can now nest "any/all subfiles" underneath an "enclosing folder" target.
Fixed not being able to nest "enclosing folder" under another "enclosing folder" target.
Added "this quarter" to date conditions and "quarter" to date formatting options.
Fixed the Mail quick folder item in the open dialog not working on 10.8
Notifications now disappear from Notification Center when clicked on.
Tokens will now indicate if it has text replacements by showing a double-ended arrow symbol at the end.
Fixed bug where changes to tokens were kept even when canceling a rule edit.
Edit button no longer is enabled if multiple rules are selected.
bash is now the default shell for shell scripts.
Fixed various quirks with custom tokens.
Numerous other fixes and tweaks.
Core changes:
Added optimizations to only process necessary files in any one pass. Should significantly cut down on files being processed over and over unnecessarily.
Scripts are now run by executing the user's preferred shell first. This should more closely (but not exactly) simulate the environment that the user experiences when running the script from Terminal.
Duplicate files are thrown away after a delay. This should prevent Hazel from interfering if you are doing something in the folder, like creating new folders or making a copy manually so you can move it somewhere else.
Files too big for the trash and marked for immediate deletion now have a grace period of a few minutes before they are deleted.
iTunes/iPhoto/Aperture timeout is now based on file size. Should prevent Hazel from timing out early when importing huge files.
Re-worked/updated how metadata and attributes are fetched from files which should result in better performance.
Fixed text replacement not taking place for custom or exported tokens.
Shell script output is once again enabled in the logs, but only in debug mode.
Symlinks should now have the date added of when the link was added, not the date added of the file/folder it is pointing to.
Fixed numerous issues with custom tokens which would cause crashes or rule corruption.
Reworked some aspects of the logging system. Certain logs are now filtered out unless enabled via a default.
Honey bunches of fixes.

New in Hazel 3.0.18 Build 890 (Apr 18, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.0.17 Build 889 (Apr 9, 2013)

New in Hazel 3.0.16 Build 886 (Dec 4, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.15 Build 882 (Nov 20, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.14 Build 881 (Nov 13, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.13 Build 875 (Oct 3, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.12 Build 863 (Aug 30, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.11 Build 841 (Aug 3, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.10 Build 834 (Jul 11, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.9 Build 829 (Jul 5, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.8 Build 818 (Jun 5, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.7 Build 815 (Jun 2, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.6 Build 812 (May 21, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.5 Build 803 (May 7, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.4 Build 790 (Apr 3, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.3 Build 780 (Mar 16, 2012)

New in Hazel 3.0.2 Build 775 (Mar 12, 2012)

New in Hazel 2.3.8 (Nov 18, 2010)

New in Hazel 2.3.7 (Apr 26, 2010)

New in Hazel 2.3.6 (Apr 2, 2010)

New in Hazel 2.3.5 (Dec 14, 2009)

New features:
Added "source folder" attribute to be used in rename/subfolder patterns. Represents the original folder the file/folder was located in. You can set the formatting of the attribute to show the relative path from the watched folder. The upshot of this is you can move/copy a file to another folder and then sort it into a subfolder, basically mirroring the folder structure at the source.
Added "#" attribute. This represents a counter where it substitutes an ever increasing number each time. Can be used to number files sequentially.
Now integrates with Speed Download. Its download folder is selectable in the open dialog when adding a folder to monitor. In addition, Hazel will recognize its incomplete downloads and numbering scheme (for the purposes of identifying possible dupes).
Hazel can now run AppleScript bundles (scptd).
User interface changes:
Added tool tips for most draggable attributes.
Fixed the crumpled paper icon in the App Sweep window. It would draw incorrectly on certain Mac models.
Fixed the "enclosing folder" icon in folder pop-ups possibly not drawing optimally on certain Mac models.
Fixed bug where you couldn't edit any rules after a certain sequence of events.
Fixed bug where you couldn't edit certain rules containing an embedded AppleScript.
Fixed the interface bugging out if you clicked on an invalid folder and opted to select a new one then cancelled the open dialog.
When editing the number of digits for a number, the case for 0 digits is now displayed as "No change", meaning that the number will be displayed as it was given.
Fixed flakiness when deleting a custom token.
Various other UI fixes and tweaks.
Minor tweaks to help files.
Core changes:
AppSweep now cleans out the -Caches- folder under /var/folders
AppSweep now cleans out Growl tickets.
Fixed possible crasher when AppSweep is triggered.
Fixed case where if a custom token matched text with numbers in it, it would remove any leading zeroes on that text instead of letting it pass through untouched.
Fixed certain actions failing after a script action if the script swapped the file for a different one.
Fixed case on Leopard where AppSweep would copy instead of move a file across volumes.
Fixed the "date opened" attribute. Would bomb when executing the rule if used in a pattern.
Fixed detection of Finder numbered duplicates (e.g. somefile copy 2).
Will automatically purge any of the temporary Hazel pref files in the Preferences directory. This should follow a weekly schedule when the logs are rotated. This is a workaround for an Apple bug.
Plugged memory leak.
Numerous fixes.

New in Hazel 2.3.4 (Sep 24, 2009)

New in Hazel 2.3.3 (Sep 23, 2009)

New Features:
[Snow Leopard] Hazel, when running on Snow Leopard, now uses Snow Leopard's data size units. Snow Leopard changed its notion of kilobyte (KB), megabyte (MB), gigabyte (GB) to be base 10 instead of base 2. Hazel now matches this but brings up a warning since this changes the interpretation of file sizes in trash settings and rules.
User interface changes:
Fixed the "Library" playlist not showing up in the pop-up for the "Import into iTunes" action with iTunes 9 installed.
Fixed AppSweep window not showing icons.
The AppSweep window is now Spaces aware. Should appear in the active Space.
When rules are imported, if the rules file's name matches a folder, it will be initially selected in the list.
Fixed the rename function not working when invoked from the contextual or action menus.
Will now scroll to the selected folder in the folder list on startup if it isn't normally visible.
UI optimizations.
Core changes:
Improvements/fixes to AppSweep's scanning of PDF services.
App Sweep will no longer consider apps only on disk images to be installed. As a result, if the last copy of an app is on a disk image, it will not stop App Sweep as it did before.
Fixed crash of the background process.
Files with modification dates set too far into the future will no longer be considered "busy".
[Snow Leopard] Hazel may accumulate numerous temporary files in your preferences folder. This problem has been minimized greatly but will not totally go away until a fix is provided by Apple. You can remove any of the files that end in random characters, but not the ones that end in just .plist
[Snow Leopard] Added workaround for Apple bug where its move/copy routine would fail for files with slashes (/) in their name (these are the equivalent of colons (:) when using UNIX paths).
[Snow Leopard] Fixed a couple cases of rule conditions failing on accented characters.
[Snow Leopard] Fixed various deprecation warnings.
Fixed error in logs when using the preview function.
Made improvements to code that handles Firefox (and related browsers) prefs. Should be able to deal with multiple profiles now.
Various memory optimizations including plugging a memory leak or two.
Miscellaneous cleanups and fixes for stability.

New in Hazel 2.3.2 (Aug 21, 2009)

New Features:
Snow Leopard compatibility: Hazel is now runnable on Snow Leopard.
64 bit support: Hazel is now 64-bit. If your CPU supports it, the preference pane will load into System Preferences on Snow Leopard without requiring a restart in 32-bit mode. The background processes will also run in 64-bit on Snow Leopard.
User interface changes:
Fixed the menubar menu not updating when a drive was mounted/unmounted.
Entries in the menubar menu for folders on unmounted/ejected drives will now stay there and just grey out when the drive is unavailable.
Numeric attributes now show your selected number format in its pop-up if it isn't one of the presets.
Fixed attributes and tokens getting "linked" across rules when a rule was copied. For example changes to the date format in one would be seen in the other. Copies now should be totally distinct from each other.
Fixed keyboard navigation in the main pane interface.
Fixed the focus ring not showing up for the action pull-down button.
Entries in the Spotlight picker should now sort in a case-insensitive manner.
Core changes:
Fixed bug where the uninstall log was not being created, therefore breaking multiuser App Sweep.
Fixed App Sweep popping up if a duplicate of a file is thrown away. This usually happens when a copy of the app is already in the Trash resulting in "SomeApp-1.app" thus tricking Hazel into thinking it's a different app.
Fixed case where a badly formed bundle id would confuse App Sweep into adding the preferences folder to the support file list.
App Sweep should now be able to clean up after screen savers.
Fixed text captured by a custom token having spaces stripped out of it.
Fixed crash when executing a rule which used the "domain" attribute with a special format option (formatting as "example.com" instead of "www.example.com") and the file had no domain set.
Tweaked trash algorithm in terms of prioritizing and handling oversized files.
Fixed subtle case in code determining a file's extension when the extension is a number (such as is the case with man pages) and it has a file association with an app.
Numerous internal fixes.

New in Hazel 2.3.1 (Jul 15, 2009)

New in Hazel 2.3 (Jul 13, 2009)

New Features:
Added multiuser support for App Sweep. If enabled, when you throw something away, other users on the same machine, when they log in, will also get a chance to also throw away their support files.
Added autocompletion to fields in the rule interface. Saves typing for common phrases and tags.
Expanded formatting options for different attributes.
Numeric attributes can have number of digits specified.
List attributes can be set to select only the first or last item instead of displaying all items.
Custom tokens will show formatting options based on what types of characters it consists of.
[Leopard] Added in-app store. Purchase Hazel from the app itself and have the license automatically downloaded and registered. Tiger users will continue to be directed to the website.
Added syntax highlighting for shell scripts. Works not only for shell (sh/bash) scripts, but for Python, Perl, Ruby and awk as well.
Miscellaneous improvements to the script editor.
Added special "enclosing folder" which can be the destination of move/copy operations. Allows one to move/copy a file or folder up one level.
Growl notification action now has an option to make it "sticky" (it will stay on the screen until clicked on). You can still override this in Growl's preferences.
Attributes which are lists of items now can use pattern matching in conditions.
The "Unarchive" action can now handle RAR files (including multipart archives). Upon successful unarchiving, all the RAR parts will be thrown away and replaced with the unarchived contents.
Added support for Transmission and Opera. If the apps are installed, they will appear in the QuickList drop-down when adding a folder.
Obsoleting keywords. Keywords are being phased out. If you are using keywords, you should receive a warning about converting your rules as well as a button to take you to a web page that gives more details on why this is being done and how you can migrate over. The page includes a program to convert existing files.
User interface changes:
Fixed preview not accurately showing results of rules filtering on "Subfolder depth."
Fixed custom tokens sometimes not appearing in the attribute lists for actions.
Multiple App Sweep windows are now consolidated into one with tabs.
Fixed "Reveal in Finder" contextual menu item not working in the App Sweep window.
Fixed bugs with the "Kind" menu. Would sometimes get confused when a rule first loaded up, ending up with no "Kind" selected.
The warning icon for rules with errors should be more reliable as to when it is displayed (or not displayed).
Added "View Log" to menubar icon menu.
For unregistered users, menubar icon menu now shows time left in trial.
Added "hidden" debug mode checkbox. In the "Info" tab, hold down the option key and the checkbox will appear. Checking this option will enable debug logging.
Fixed hitting return in a pattern field sometimes not registering.
Error messages in the AppleScript editor are now selectable.
Fixed visual indicators on folders in folder list. Those that are inaccessible (on an ejected/unmounted drive) show as faded while those that are just gone (deleted) will have a red "x" on them. They should also have different tool tips explaining their status. Also, they should be better at staying up to date.
If a folder is inaccessible (the drive it is on has been ejected/unmounted), the UI will hide menu items to run rules manually.
The minute and seconds tokens in the date format interface now default to formatting as two digits.
Fixed spring-loaded folders not following Finder preferences on Leopard.
Numerous UI tweaks.
Core changes:
Fixed how custom tokens match text. It won't affect whether a pattern as a whole matches or not. Instead it affects what portion of the text gets "captured" by a custom token. It should now work in a way that makes more intuitive sense. If you use custom tokens, you may want to re-check how things work with the new behavior.
App Sweep has been improved to catch even more files.
Performance improvements in App Sweep. Scans should be a tad faster now.
Should now be able to derive the "Kind" from certain files without extensions that have a Kind assigned to them based on their creator code/file type.
Fixed Hazel getting confused when a file with the same filename would appear in a folder over and over again. In such cases, Hazel would think it was the same file.
If a file is going to be renamed to the same name, will now skip it so as to avoid updating any timestamps.
Fixed Hazel losing track of files on unmounted drives. Hopefully, now, Hazel won't see these files as "new" again when you remount the drive.
Should be more responsive after a drive is mounted. If Hazel is monitoring a folder on that drive, its rules will run immediately.
Fixed hours being displayed in the range 0-11 instead of 1-12.
Fixed crash when trash directory is missing.
Fixed crash which occurred with certain Spotlight database schemas.
New HZLFolderScanInterval default to override Hazel's scan interval. The value should be specified in seconds.
Various other fixes.

New in Hazel 2.2.4 (Dec 17, 2008)

New in Hazel 2.2.3 (Oct 21, 2008)

New in Hazel 2.2.2 (Sep 25, 2008)

Added "Export All" function to export all rules for all folders at once. Useful for doing quick backups of all rulesets.
Growl notification system now less chatty with errors. If a specific notification is already showing, it will not be shown again. If an error keeps happening on the same file over and over, a Growl notification will only be sent once a day for that file. Note that logs will still show every instance of the error.
Spotlight attributes represented by dates now behave like the built-in date attributes in renaming patterns. You can click on them and edit their format.
Spotlight attribute panel/picker now loads incrementally to give a better sense of progress.
In the rename/sort into subfolder interfaces, Spotlight attributes should display values in the example text based on their type.
Fixed crash when canceling the Spotlight attribute panel before it finishes loading.
Fixed sporadic crash in the AppleScript and shellscript editors.
[Tiger] Fixed drag and drop of rules.
[Tiger] Fixed AppleScript editor inserting handler code when the script was compiled.
Fixed Growl not going to the correct file when the notification was clicked on.
Fixed highlighting of errors in the AppleScript editor where it would cause an occasional out of bounds error to be logged in the console.
Fixed glitch where editing a rule and switching to the "move" action did not update the interface.
Rule interface should now better deal with the case where the rule window gets bigger than the screen. It is a still bit quirky at times but should for the most part work. Will need to re-address this issue in a future release.
Made file renumbering much more intelligent. Should be able to figure out what part of the filename is really the extension and what part just happens to be parts of the name separated by dots. Should now append the number after the correct part.
Changed internal handling of Finder comments. Should better handle files that are on network filesystems and other cases where Spotlight is disabled or inaccessible.
Hazel now tries to limit writing its db file to disk when possible.
Fixed problems with folders/filenames starting with tilde (~).
Fixed scheduling of log rotations. Should re-adjust after waking from sleep.
Fixed bug in AppleScript handling where if you returned a record with both the hazelStop and hazelSwitchFile keys, only one of them would be recognized. Not that it makes much sense to have both but it could affect things if more keys are added in the future.
Added ErrorNotificationFrequency default to control how often (specified in seconds) you'll get a Growl notification for the same error message on the same file (see Growl message throttling in the New Features section above). If not set, the default is once a day. Set it to 0 to only get the notification the first time it happens.
Log messages that print out error codes should now have a more human-friendly description.
Numerous cleanups, fixes and tweaks.

New in Hazel 2.2.1 (Jul 25, 2008)

New in Hazel 2.2 (Jul 8, 2008)

Ability to create patterns for matching. Use the "matches/does not match" operator.
Ability to create custom tokens. Define them in your match patterns and then use them in your rename/sort/Growl actions.
AppleScripts and shellscripts can now be embedded into the rules. No external files needed. Scripts can be edited right in Hazel.
Added new GTD-like date matching. Dates can be compared against "Today", "This Week", "This Month" and "This Year" which align with the calendar concepts of days, weeks, months and year.
Added "is in the next" operator for dates. Useful for dates in the future (like due dates).
Added "Subfolder Depth" attribute which is how many levels deep from the top folder (the top folder being at depth 0). Can now control what rules apply to what levels of a folder hierarchy.
AppleScripts can now return a record with special keys to communicate back to Hazel: hazelStop: If set to true, Hazel will stop processing the current rule, considering it to have executed successfully. Subsequent actions in this rule will not be run. hazelSwitchFile: If set to an alternate file, subsequent actions will act on this file instead of the original one passed in. You can use this when the file is "transformed" (like turned into an archive) or if you want to re-target another file, like the parent folder.
You can now select multiple rules in the rule list (finally).
Added new formatting options for the "domain" token. Clicking on it will allow you to get its "base" domain or strip it down even further by dropping the TLD. For instance, "www.example.com" can be formatted as "example.com" or "example".
Script pop-ups now keep track of any currently used scripts.
Fixed underlining of the "month" token's menu items. While the numerical forms should have underlines to indicate number of digits, they make no sense for the textual forms (Dec & December).
Tweaked the color label picker on Leopard to more closely resemble Finder's current look. Will also display name and selection frame when moused over.
Widened rule window to match width of System Preference's window (at least, Leopard's version of it).
Fixed multiple duster icons appearing. Note, this fixes the problem from this version onwards. You may still experience it when first upgrading to this version.
App Sweep will prompt for a password if any support files' permissions require it.
App Sweep now picks up any installed QuickLook plugins.
Fixed bug where extra hazeldb files were being created.
Added "ScanInvisibles" default. If set, Hazel will not ignore invisibles, instead processing them like any other file.
Added "IgnoredBackupDirs" default. It is an array of directories that when determining whether an app is installed, App Sweep will ignore if that app is underneath that directory.
HFS busy flag is now ignored. Files with this flag set will not be considered busy. It was unclear whether any program uses this correctly and there were cases where programs were setting the flag incorrectly.
Fixed error messages being logged when uninstalling files even when it was successful.
Fixed memory leaks.