Noodlesoft Forums

Hello,
I would really like to know if Monterey has not already integrated some of the basic functions of Hazel.
If Monterey already includes rules for sorting, renaming and other basic functions of Hazel, what reason would there still be to use and buy Hazel?
I would like to wait through macOS Monterey to see if I still have to buy Hazel.
But I think that if a lot of functions will be integrated into Monterey, the price for Hazel will have to be reduced by a large amount.
What is your opinion?

Can you describe exactly what feature(s) you are referring to?

Mr_Noodle wrote:Can you describe exactly what feature(s) you are referring to?

unfortunately I can't currently, because Monterey has not yet been published. But according to the Apple Event there should be some basic functional enhancements in the Finder that makes Hazel obsolete, at least in the automatisms and rules that I personally use.

I'm looking at the AppleScript dictionary on Monterey and I don't see anything there that supports what you are saying. It looks pretty much like it has for previous versions of macOS. I suspect you are either misunderstanding whatever it is you are seeing or what Hazel actually does.

EDIT: realized you might not mean AppleEvents, but the public event/presentation by Apple. Which event are you referring to? The one that just happened made no mention of Monterey. If you are referring to WWDC, I don't recall anything along those lines. Feel free to email in but again, I suspect you may be misinterpreting something.

Mr_Noodle wrote:I'm looking at the AppleScript dictionary on Monterey and I don't see anything there that supports what you are saying. It looks pretty much like it has for previous versions of macOS. I suspect you are either misunderstanding whatever it is you are seeing or what Hazel actually does.

EDIT: realized you might not mean AppleEvents, but the public event/presentation by Apple. Which event are you referring to? The one that just happened made no mention of Monterey. If you are referring to WWDC, I don't recall anything along those lines. Feel free to email in but again, I suspect you may be misinterpreting something.

He might be referring to one of the examples mentioned in regards to Shortcut Automations where on the preview page for macOS Monterey they mentioned as an example: "Organize Downloads Folder. Creates subfolders within your Downloads folder, separating them into images, audio, and other file types."

To be fair I've been watching Shortcuts Automations vs. Hazel for this reason (the above example is what brought Hazel to my attention as I used DropIt on Windows for that very purpose, though I'm aware Hazel has far more functionality beyond just that one automation), but it's really hard to find a solid comparison because there is still no functionality of Automations in the beta yet. So for all we know, it could have quite a few features that Hazel also offers, or that example above may literally be it.

Possibly, but information about Shortcuts is publicly known and can be discussed.

Even if that is the case, Shortcuts is not really much different than Automator. The "actions" part of Hazel is actually the least distinct part, which is why Hazel allows you to use external tools like scripts and Automator (and hopefully Shortcuts soon). The real power is in the rule engine and handling things in an automatic fashion. To say that Hazel is obsolete just because there's yet another method to run actions misses out on what Hazel does.

Also, note that macOS has Folder Actions built in if you want a basic trigger mechanism. If you feel that in combination with whatever types of scripts you can whip up work for your case, then great. But history has shown that that solution falls short for many users out there.

Mr_Noodle wrote:Possibly, but information about Shortcuts is publicly known and can be discussed.

Even if that is the case, Shortcuts is not really much different than Automator. The "actions" part of Hazel is actually the least distinct part, which is why Hazel allows you to use external tools like scripts and Automator (and hopefully Shortcuts soon). The real power is in the rule engine and handling things in an automatic fashion. To say that Hazel is obsolete just because there's yet another method to run actions misses out on what Hazel does.

Also, note that macOS has Folder Actions built in if you want a basic trigger mechanism. If you feel that in combination with whatever types of scripts you can whip up work for your case, then great. But history has shown that that solution falls short for many users out there.

Thanks for the reply. There are certain things that are basic that *could* be done by macOS for example, but as you say, the rules with Hazel is part of what makes it great and why I'm still going to use it. I wasn't too sure if Shortcuts were to have their own "rules", but I could probably guess that they wouldn't be as intuitive as a mature software like Hazel. Despite the Downloads folders comparison, I was planning to acquire Hazel soon anyway for other reasons so while I can't speak for the other user, apologies if it sounded like I was making it sound like Hazel was going to become obsolete as that's not the case. I was more so just curious what are the comparisons between the two even when Shortcut Automations come, similarly to how a paid app (Hazel) will usually provide much more functionality than a free variant (Shortcuts).