Matching for file attributes fails

Hello,

I am trying to sort photos that I have taken with my iPhone with Hazel rules.

When I search for those pictures with Spotlight (kind is "image", device manufacturer attribute is "Apple"), they are found. When I use the same rules from within Hazel, they are not matched.
I tested this with some other attributes, with the same result. The files are found with Spotlight, but not matched with Hazel.

I suspect this is because I use a german version of OSX. There the attributes show up with german names, e.g. the attribute for device manufacturer is shown as "Gerätename".
An inspection of the file with mdls shows the attribute as "kMDItemAcquisitionMake".

Any help is appreciated!

Have you checked Hazel's preview? If you click on the "i" button for that file, it will show the attributes as Hazel sees them.

"Preview": yes, I have checked the preview. None of the files that should match are listed.

"i" button: when I click this, the following attributes are shown for a JPG file:
- Name
- Extension
- Full Name
- Date Added
- Date Created
- Date Last Modified
- Date Last Opened
- Current Time
- Kind
- Size
- Subfolder Depth
- Sub-file/folder Count

No IPTC, EXIF or GPS data nor any other attributes are shown.

Can you try using the 'mdls' command on one of the files in Terminal and see what that dumps?

Ok, I did an mdls on the file and some further research.

I conclude that Hazel relies on Spotlight's index to match file type specific attributes?

Cause I saw that the rule I created in Hazel will match the picture if it is on my local drive, but not when it is in a directory on my NAS drive (which is a bummer, because I do all important sorting, renaming etc. on my NAS).

Yes, it requires Spotlight. What network file protocol is the NAS using?

(Sorry for the delayed reply)

The network share is connected via SMB.

But before I look for an EXIF utility that can be wrapped in a shell script I think it will be easier to process the images on a local drive...

By the way, it would seem that the condition "Date added" also does not work on network shares?

Thanks,

Stefan

It should. If the filesystem doesn't provide it, Hazel will record it itself. That said, it will only add a date added when it first sees it. It can't see into the past if the file was added some time ago and was never recorded.