Hazel for iOS

Talk, speculate, discuss, pontificate. As long as it pertains to Hazel.

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Hazel for iOS Sat Nov 03, 2018 4:35 pm • by peterhziegler
Hi Group,

I`m trying to switch to iOS only with my iPad Pro 12.9. The last thing that prevents me from doing it is, that I can‘t use Hazel, which I really need. I process my expenses through Hazel, print the invoices if neccessary and send PDFs to Evernote and my online bookkeeping Software. I tried Workflow but it wasn‘t even remotely as good as Hazel.

So, is an iOS version in the pipeline or does anyone have a suggestion, how to solve this? Would be amazing! :-) TIA!

Best,
Peter
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Re: Hazel for iOS Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:18 pm • by Mr_Noodle
There's no chance of Hazel on iOS. iOS does not provide real access to the filesystem nor the files of other apps. Also, it does not allow automation in that it won't allow something like Hazel to continually run and execute commands as needed.

If the files are synced from a Mac, you can have Hazel run on the Mac to sort things there.
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Re: Hazel for iOS Sun Aug 18, 2019 1:21 am • by Jdoran
Will this now be possible with the Files app improvements in iOS13? I’d also love to see Hazel on my iPad if it’s a possibility!
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Re: Hazel for iOS Mon Aug 19, 2019 9:53 am • by Mr_Noodle
The changes needed are FAR deeper than that. Hazel needs to run in the background which is just not possible in iOS and I don't see that changing. The best you can do is to use Workflow on iOS, though, as with everything else, you'll have to trigger it manually as needed.
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Re: Hazel for iOS Mon Oct 14, 2019 2:10 pm • by juansafe
Maybe noodlesoft should think beyond; beyond macOS, beyond iOS ... Think of a future of Hazel located in the cloud. Something of the ZAPIER style. https://zapier.com
PD: or may be an QNap/Synology app for NAS?
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Re: Hazel for iOS Mon Oct 14, 2019 2:58 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Even less possible since it can't really monitor your local filesystem with a web app.
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Re: Hazel for iOS - Here is the work-around Sun Oct 20, 2019 10:15 am • by Trickyt57
Hazel for iOS is impossible for the reasons mentioned in the earlier replies.

The simple workaround - which allows you to access all your files on an iPad is to store your files in the cloud.

Then you can have Hazel running on an ordinary Mac and managing, or renaming your files, whilst having the entire cloud folder structure available on your iPad.

For example:
1) You scan some invoices and other documents on your iPad using the Adobe Scan App, or another application.
2) Use the "files" app on your iPad to move (copy) those files to your cloud (e.g. OneDrive, DropBox, or iCloud), and to the folder which is monitored by Hazel running on your home Mac.
3) Hazel will then re-name the file and move it according to the rules you have defined.
4) All your files, (now renamed and stored in the appropriate folders in your cloud) are available on the iPad via the files application.
5) To avoid clutter on your iPad, you should then delete the files you scanned in (1) above. The "move" function changes to a "copy" function when you store the file in the cloud, so the original is left behind on the iPad. Since the copy is now in the cloud, you don't need the original any more on the iPad. You only keep the original if you won't be able to access the cloud e.g. due to being out of range of a network or WiFi.
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Re: Hazel for iOS Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:10 am • by jennylove
Oh sad news for me too as i m also looking for this...
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Re: Hazel for iOS Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:28 am • by jbrwilkinson
Mr_Noodle wrote:The changes needed are FAR deeper than that. Hazel needs to run in the background which is just not possible in iOS and I don't see that changing. The best you can do is to use Workflow on iOS, though, as with everything else, you'll have to trigger it manually as needed.


I think there’s probably a number of users that wouldn’t mind if Hazel had to be run manually and gave something like a progress bar as it processed all the files that it found in monitor Files folders. In that way, it could also run in Split View or a Slide Over.

I’d very happy pay separately for an iPad app, even if it was limited in scope.
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Re: Hazel for iOS Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:11 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Is there a reason why Shortcuts doesn't work for you? If you want manually running workflows on files, it seems like that would be the way to go.
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Re: Hazel for iOS Sat Oct 24, 2020 2:13 pm • by jbrwilkinson
I don’t see any way in Shortcuts to find files based on their contents - is there one? ‘Filter Files’ action only does date(s), size and name. I think Shortcuts is best for ‘in the moment’ tasks - chaining together some actions for one particular file/URL. When downloading bank statements/bills/credit card statements, I can Cmd-S to save the PDF to Downloads, but choosing some automation from the Share menu isn’t as easy.

The ability to run a number of rules upon anything I’ve dropped into the e.g. Downloads folder would be super. Again, really don’t mind if this has to be kicked off manually.
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Re: Hazel for iOS Mon Oct 26, 2020 10:30 am • by Mr_Noodle
Someone might be able to create actions for Shortcuts to do that. I'm not sure it's worthwhile to have an extremely limited version of Hazel on iOS just to do this.
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Re: Hazel for iOS Thu Nov 19, 2020 2:15 pm • by gcoghill
jbrwilkinson wrote:I don’t see any way in Shortcuts to find files based on their contents - is there one? ‘Filter Files’ action only does date(s), size and name. I think Shortcuts is best for ‘in the moment’ tasks - chaining together some actions for one particular file/URL. When downloading bank statements/bills/credit card statements, I can Cmd-S to save the PDF to Downloads, but choosing some automation from the Share menu isn’t as easy.

The ability to run a number of rules upon anything I’ve dropped into the e.g. Downloads folder would be super. Again, really don’t mind if this has to be kicked off manually.


Yeah this is the biggest limitation for automation in Shortcuts on files, the inability to search/match file contents. I don’t foresee that being allowed in iOS anytime soon, so even a potential Hazel iOS wouldn’t likely have access to that data.

If iOS did allow that, then setting up workflows would probably make more sense than developing Hazel iOS, since Shortcuts can do a lot of what Hazel does.

I am not on iOS 14 yet, but it seems automations can at least be scheduled if not actively watch folders, so it’s a little closer to being feasible. But I lean heavily on Hazel’s file content matching for my main automations, and iOS itself prevents that from being possible, for the time being at least.
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