Noodlesoft Forums

I'm trying to automate a backup of my Hazel rules and it seems surpisingly difficult, and honestly a bit baffling that this isn't simple.
- the export rules function is manual
- the rules sync must be set up folder-by-folder
- I can backup the .hazelrules files from 'Application Support' but they don't appear to include info on the related folder and would require me to remember and recreate each folder and import the rules one by one
- other posts imply that even with a backup of these files, I will still need to set them up again one by one

How can I automate a backup that includes ALL my folders' rules - including the names of the folders, and covering future folders that I haven't set up yet?

You should be doing full backups anyways and if you are doing it right, it should include all the info for Hazel. That includes the Application Support files as well as preferences. The export feature is for secondary backups but is no replacement for a general backup system.

I don't do "full backups" for non-documents- I learned a long time ago that I stongly prefer to have nuanced control over what settings and other system data I back up, so if and when I have to rebuild a new system I know it's a clean slate for anything I'm not handling.

I can pick out the Hazel-related files if I must, assuming following https://www.noodlesoft.com/kb/restoring ... m-backups/ will cover it, but I read a post that implied when restoring rules from backups that I still need to create each rule folder manually. Can't find the post now, so maybe that's not actually an issue.

Either way it would be awesome if there was some way to automate full export (ideally using a human-readable format) and have something that can reliably be reimported in a ~single step, so I could have more control and also validate backup/restore easier.

If you backup the preferences, that covers the folder list.