Steps in an Action

Hi

Hopefully someone can help out this newbie.

The scenario:

1. A zip file with music is downloaded to the Download directory

Obviously I want the zip to be unarchived - easy.

However, the mp3's are in a subdirectory of downloads and I want to import those to iTunes and then delete the mp3's and the directory.

As the unarchive function creates a subdirectory within the downloads, Hazel cannot do it's magic. It works if I manually move the mp3's to the download directory.

Can this be done? If there is a few mp3's in the folder is the rule run on each file in turn (thus deleted ) or is each step run on all the matching files in a sequence - thus do not want to delete the directory.

Thanks

Andrew
When archived

If I understand you directly, you need to do this in separate rules. If you unarchive something, you get a folder so subsequent actions in that same rule will act on the folder as a whole, not the files in it. That said, I haven't tried it but maybe the import action will take in a folder? It really depends on iTunes whether it will work.

If not, then you need to then do a separate rule that will go into the folder and yet another to actually work on the files within (see the sticky article about going into subfolders near the top of this forum). Whatever rule is doing the importing could also throw the file away. You could then write another rule to throw away any empty folders (size is 0).

It's a tad roundabout but I say try just importing the whole folder and see if iTunes will take it as that's the more direct route.

With iTunes 9, maybe it would be easiest to have a Hazel rules that moves an extracted music folder to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder under the iTunes Media folder and let iTunes figure out how to import the individual files? That's if Automatically Add to iTunes will process content in folders, of course, which could be easily tested manually.

Hi

iTunes does import folders. I will give that a go.

To understand you correctly - should I have rule 1 as unarchive, rule 2 a music import one, or can I do all the above in one rule???

Thanks

Andrew

If you are trying to import the whole folder, you can do it in one rule. Unarchive, then import (after the unarchive action, the rule is processing the unpacked folder).