Noodlesoft Blog

This tool keeps that log, and offers it when you drag an app to the trash: https://www.noodlesoft.com/ It does lots more, but this bonus is great.

I use Hazel[0] to archive everything in my "downloads" folder after a month. Files get separated into "~/Archive/Images/", "~/Archive/Screenshots/" "~/Archive/Audio" ..." depending on certain criteria (mostly file type). Each sub-folder is broken down by year and month, for example "~/Archive/Images/2015/05/". I also occasionally dump stuff that doesn't belong elsewhere into the same folder system, for example WhatsApp media. Basically, if it doesn't need to be specifically filed somewhere, I just put it in my "downloads", knowing that it will be somewhat searchable in the archive by either date, file type or in-document search. This is great for all of the bits and pieces that you don't necessarily have a home for or want to manage. [0] https://www.noodlesoft.com/

I’m looking to improve, simplify, and more efficient but here is my present setup for our family (no extended family yet). We use Apple Photos as the primary, of which I export a backup once a while (at-least yearly for sure). Because Apple has’t solved what everyone ask — a way for two or more users to merge Photos, I use Dropbox[1] on the other devices (wife, daughters) to collect into “Camera Uploads”. I split the content into “Screenshots” (PNG), Videos, and Photos with Hazel[2]. Photos to imported to the Primary Photos Library, Screenshots, and Videos are either deleted or sorted weekly (few minutes), monthly (30-min-ish), quarterly(30-min-ish), and yearly (about 3-5 hours on a day around the end of the year, with the other digital clean-up task) during my digital chores that I do. My daughters produces a lot of them that I need to throw out. She can position her iPad and video-shoot while she talks her way cleaning her desk for an hour. The photos and videos are now in my primary device iMac (for now), with a second backup on a 2012 MacMini running many other digital errands. The 2TB iCloud+[3] is good enough for now. I would definitely love to clean this steps and move to a more non-proprietary format (read non-Apple) to Open Source tools/process. I tried Google Photos because it was easier to combine and I even had one of their large plan but it turned out to be one of the messiest thing I tried. Stopped using them[4]. I will be reading and learning from the…

Automator and AppleScript are the top two automation tools on macOS. Automator is the more user-friendly of the two; provides a visual workflow interface for chaining together tasks and capabilities. AppleScript is Apple's attempt at natural-language scripting. Between the two, there's very little you can't automate on Mac, although both have counter-intuitive idiosyncrasies that can be frustrating. One of the best non-Apple—and, seemingly, least well-known—Mac automation tools is called Hazel: https://www.noodlesoft.com/. I've been using it for years, and I strongly recomend it. Hazel does one specific thing, but it does it really well: it watches a specific folder for files that match criteria you specify, and it does something to them: moves them, copies them, renames them, even passes them to a script (AppleScript or Javascript) or Automator workflow. Here's a few things I'm doing with Hazel: - keeps my desktop clean by moving all files that are more than a day old into a "desktop_archive" folder, which is organized into month and year folders: /2019/09, 2019/10, etc. - automatically unpacks downloaded zip files, and moves any fonts I download into a Fonts folder - checks the desktop for any text files that begin with "notes" (or "project ideas", "journal", and a couple of other things) and moves them to their respective folders, also organized chronologically. - checks the desktop for any image files with specific filenames, and runs an Automator workflow on them…

Ephemeral like a table quickly hacked together for a specific purpose. It can hold a single flower pot, will fall over if a kid tries to climb on it, is made from wood that's delicious to dogs and most likely won't last 25 years because it wasn't finished properly. But the person who made it needed a table for a flower pot, doesn't have kids or pets and will happily build a new one in 10 years when the old one breaks down from bad joins. Not every piece of shitty software has a massive attack surface the will immediately kill people if it operates wrong. Is my personal cheap imitation of Hazel[0] I vibe-coded in two evenings perfectly bug free and does it replicate every feature of Hazel perfectly? Of course not, but it does the exact 5 things I need it to do and saved be the upgrade price to Hazel 6. [0] https://www.noodlesoft.com/

An automated file system handler, similar to Hazel[1]. I want to treat my Downloads folder (or some other one) like an "Inbox" where I can just dump everything, and then the program knows where exactly in my (Johnny Decimal) file system the file should land. [1] https://www.noodlesoft.com/

> Alternative solution: treat your downloads folder as ephemeral and delete everything every few weeks. Hazel[0] works well for this, but automatic download folder cleanup feels a lot like it should be a stock Finder feature. [0]: https://www.noodlesoft.com

My first thought was the Mac app that's been around for about 18 years now: https://www.noodlesoft.com And it had a release today. https://www.noodlesoft.com/release_notes Seems rough to jump on a name that's been in continuous use for that long. Would it be hard to add another word to make it easier to disambiguate?

Sounds like we do similar organization, though I avoid Tags and use Keywords, which I prefer primarily because they can be embedded in many files types and can be more numerously assigned. Regardless, for much of your work assigning Tags and organizing files, have a look at Hazel for automating these tasks. And yes, it can read the contents of Pages files. https://www.noodlesoft.com

I use Hazel for this. But it could be improved on. https://www.noodlesoft.com

I use beets as an importer (filename + id3 tags cleaning) and keep using iTunes for browsing/playing. I glue the two together by using importfeeds plugin + Hazel(http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel) to trigger iTunes import. Should probably blog about my setup as it's not the simplest one but works great.

If watch folders are very important to you you might look at Hazel (http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php), which is like a more tolerable implementation of Folder Actions. It has a "Import into iTunes" action built in, and can be set to recurse subfolders. If iTunes is set to copy files on import, Hazel can be told to trash the original. I wouldn't recommend it for just that, but even if it doesn't strike your fancy--after the trial expires, it still works on one folder with two rules (e.g. Add to iTunes & Move to Trash), so it doesn't really cost anything if that's all you use it for. I'm not excusing the lack of a similar feature in iTunes, but that's what I use and I'm happy with it.

The phrase "too little, too late" springs to mind. Also the phrases "crippling hubris", "halfhearted sop", "internecine bloodletting" ( http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/26/HNflair_1.html ) and "hat-trick" ( http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/javaorigin.html , http://www.noodlesoft.com/blog/2007/01/23/the-sun-also-sets/ ). Now it's quite likely those horrible inklings are wrong. Maybe JavaFX is a clever spoiler move to take significant momentum out of Silverlight and Flex at minimal expense to Sun; maybe it's a stalling manoeuvre while Project Flair condenses. But then again ... oh man, yeah, Sun.

* Homebrew - Package manager (kinda like apt/rpm on Linux). * Secretive - Stores SSH keys in the secure enclave [https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive] * Alfred - Better spotlight [https://www.alfredapp.com/] * Hazel - File automations [https://www.noodlesoft.com/] * Arq - Excellent backup software for local and/or remote backups [https://arqbackup.com/] * ChronoSync - File synchronization on steoroids [https://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html] * Launch Control - Easily edit and control those Launchctl files [https://www.soma-zone.com/LaunchControl/] * Sublime Text - Excellent and fast text editor [https://www.sublimetext.com/] * Sublime Merge - Excellent Git UI [https://www.sublimemerge.com/] * Zed - Currently evaluating if it can replace Sublime Text [https://zed.dev/] * Little Snitch - Network Monitor and Application Firewall [https://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html] * KnockKnock/BlockBlock/Oversight - Various malware monitoring and detection [https://objective-see.org/index.html] * Draw.io - Diagramming tool [https://www.drawio.com/] * Iterm2 - Terminal Replacement [https://iterm2.com/] I use a bunch of other apps, but the above are probably the most broadly applicable :)

Sounds like the Hazel app : https://www.noodlesoft.com/

I know on Mac the popular tool for automatic file sorting is Hazel https://www.noodlesoft.com/manual/hazel/hazel-overview/

For easy-to-use OSX automation I'm a big fan of Hazel: http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php I bet you could set up something similar in it.

I wanted this natively supported for ever. For now, I use Hazel* to sync every change inside an dropbox folder into an app folder. It works, but you know... * http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel

In OS X, I use Hazel to do just this. http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php

I noticed your imagined workflow seemed folder-oriented, and thought of Hazel: http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php It doesn't provide the timeline you were looking for, and I don't think it can do Internet-y stuff, but it could take care of the "if something lands in _____ folder, do ____" bit if you had it run a custom script for each action. Perhaps you could hack together your own activity stream with some elbow grease?

Hazel can do all of those things except add stuff to iTunes without opening the application (unless you count moving files to the Add to iTunes directory). http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php