How do I file screenshots?

I've been trying to do this for a few days, but I can't quite get it to work :-(

Here's what I want to do:

1. When I take a screenshot on my Mac, I want to file it in a folder on my Desktop called "Screen Shots" (which may or may not exist)

2. When a screenshot in that folder is older than 1 hour, I want to move it to the trash

3. When the "Screen Shots" folder on my Desktop is empty, I want to delete it

This seems trivial, but I can't for the life of me get it to work. Here is what I have currently:

Folder in left Sidebar: Desktop

Rule 1: File Screenshots
If (all):
Name contains "Screen Shot"
Kind is Image

Sort into Subfolder with pattern "Screen Shots"

Rule 2: Remove Screen Shots Folder
If (all):
Kind is Folder
Name is "Screen Shots"
Size is 0 bytes

Move to folder "Trash"

Rule 3: Run Rules on Screen Shots Folder
If (all):
Kind is Folder
Name is "Screen Shots"

Run rules on Folder Contents

Rule 4: Remove Old Screenshots
If (all):
Name contains "Screen Shot"
Date Created is not in the last 1 Hour

Move to folder "Trash"

For whatever reason, this set up of rules doesn't do what I need.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Try using the status interface (the "eye" button) to preview your rules. You'll probably find that some rules are matching instead of the one you want. I'm guessing rule 1 is matching in cases where you want rule 4, for instance.

Also, to detect an empty folder, it's better to use Sub-file/folder count as, because of hidden files, the size may not be 0.

I still can't get it to work at all.

I've tried the sub-file/folder count option and it removes the entire directory before it's deleted old screenshots.

Can anyone give me a recipe to make this work?

Can you post the current state of your rules? Not sure how it's deleting folders with files in them still.

Sure thing.

Here are my rules as they are currently set up:

Rule 1: Run Rules on Screen Shots Folder

Rule 2: Remove Old Screen Shots

Rule 3: File Screenshots

Rule 4: Remove Screenshots Folder

Currently, the time delay is set to 1 minute (so that I can test quickly). If I take a bunch of screen shots spread out over a minute, they get filed into the correct place, but then the whole folder gets deleted, rather than each screen shot one by one as I would expect.

I really really want to love Hazel - I can think of so many uses for it. But this is my first experience trying to create a workflow and so far it hasn't been particularly smooth

I think the problem is that rule 2 also matches the screenshot folder, which has a similar name. You need to add a condition to match images (or match non-folders) there.