iCloud Drive

When Hazel moves a file (an mp4) to an iCloud Drive folder, the files is moved locally but never uploads to Apple's iCloud sever. If the file is copied instead of moved, the copied file uploads as expected, but there doesn't appear to be any way to have Hazel delete the original. How do I move a file to iCloud and delete the original location?

This is in Catalina. In Mojave, the moved file uploaded to iCloud.

I'm guessing this is some sort of Catalina/iCloud bug as it shouldn't matter how the file appears there. I assume manual moves in Finder upload fine? Have you experimented with different source folders?

Not uploading moved files to iCloud is a Catalina, Netatmo, or FTP Server bug. The files are movies placed on an FTP server by Netatmo cameras. I don't know if the bug affects any other files.

Moving files manually results in the same problem. Files copied with the finder (manually or with Hazel) upload to iCloud as expected.

Hazel deletes the original file if I create a rule for a folder enclosed by the folder that has the copy file rule attached. This works, but it would be better if Hazel allowed two actions on the same file.

You can have multiple actions on the same file. But if you do a copy, the actions operate on the copy, not the original. There is very rarely a good reason to do a copy, then remove the original as a move action does the same thing, and more succinctly.

You can try using the sync action to sync an individual file. Subsequent actions in the same rule will operate on the original file in that case.

'Sync File' followed by 'Move to Trash' works. Thanks.

Here is a twist on the same issue. I want to copy a file to the DEVONthink inbox and then move the file to another folder for processing into an archive. The copy works but then the move takes the file from the DT inbox and moves it to the archive. The original file is left in my Downloads folder and gets re-processed later or left to rot (depending on if I manually process rules).

Basically, I want to create two copies of the file and remove the original.

Edit post ------ Oops, I didn't think the sync was working for me. It was a different connection problem and the Sync then Move works beautifully. I am leaving the post up as one of your rare examples of copy and move. It's just called Sync and Move.

Note that in your case, you can do a Move then Copy.

Jumping on this thread to keep iCloud Qs in one place.

I realise local files are what Hazel works with best, but I rely heavily on iCloud at the moment and I'm also having problems getting Hazel to stop deleting folders it recognises as empty before the contained files have downloaded locally (which happens automatically when connected to the internet, but variable how long the process will take).
My Trash Empty Folders ruleset:

Kind is Folder
Size is 0 bytes
Sub-file/folder Count is 0

Move to folder Trash

As a workaround I've added a sleep shell script as you suggested, but to accommodate different connections speeds I've set to 120 seconds which obviously isn't ideal.

Could Hazel ever get access to the iCloud Status data of a file? I don't know why even the iCloud aliases don't have any 'weight' so Hazel can recognised them, but being able to add a condition like:

iCloud Status is Downloaded

…would solve my problem! Thanks Mr Noodle.

There might be some APIs I can use to check this. I'll look into this as a possible future addition.

Note that it may be tricky as even if a folder is considered downloaded/local, that may not indicate that the files within are. If you are interested in testing such a thing out, contact me and I'll let you know when I start working on it.

That's great, thanks. I'll email the support address.