Great episode — although mostly confirmation bias since I use both apps 
David’s idea to use Hazel to trigger a shortcut is brilliant. I am away a lot so I run the Jump server on my iMac so that can get to it from the road on my laptop. But sometimes I forget to launch the server before I leave and then I am stuck. But now I have a solution!
I have one or two automations that I use in DT. But I use it more like Steven — datatbase for searching and linking things together.
Thanks for a fun episode.
It’s always nice when an episode reminds me of things I’d planned to do already. 
I added a few Hazel rules to automate some file processing, and it reminded me that I have to get my email archive up-to-date in DEVONthink.
Thanks for this. I’ve been meaning to set up filing rules for my Downloads folder (that’s where I save PDFs from the utility company), but I’ve never set up naming conventions. This episode reminded me how easy that could be!
Listening to this reminded me of an automation I used to use that broke and I’ve never been able to duplicate it and make it work since. I once had IFTT or maybe zap it Set to watch for particular emails. Power company for example that sends a pdf of electric bill. That PDF would automatically get sent to a folder and dropbox that Hazel watched and would rename and move it to my utilities folder This automation stopped working a year or so ago I think it has something to do with Gmail I’ve tried all These steps recommended to Have Gmail allow these apps to integrate but nothing works.
Does anyone know what the suggested way is to automate emails to come in with PDF attachments regularly like power bills utilities things like that?
- Are you just using Gmail’s web interface?
- If so, why aren’t you using e.g., Apple Mail?
It’s email that comes in to work on a PC Not the web interface, Gmail, but Microsoft mail or Outlook I think.
I have a Mac at home and had a folder set up in D-box that Hazel watched. I’ve had the Gmail email set up for my business for quite some time and the Zapit worked great until it didn’t.
If it works with Apple mail I guess I could always set up a rule in Gmail to forward any email from particular senders to the Apple email account But what options are available at that point to easily pull the PDF out and save it in a file?
If it works with Apple mail I guess I could always set up a rule in Gmail to forward any email from particular senders to the Apple email account
You don’t need to forward an email to an “Apple Mail account” though it’s possible. You can use your GMail account in Apple Mail.
But what options are available at that point to easily pull the PDF out and save it in a file?
Since this thread and the podcast was partially about DEVONthink… if you have at least the Pro edition installed, you could set up an Apple Mail rule and use one of our mail rule scripts to get the email and/or its attachments into DEVONthink.
My need for file automation is declining fast. My bills arrive as emails without attachments. Bills for a fixed amount receive scheduled payments from my bank. Water and power gets paid manually via my bank app. My car, home, etc. insurance bills arrive by email and are paid using Apple Pay through my insurance company’s app.
All that’s left for me to do is download pdfs of statements once month to iCloud, so Hazel can sort and move them to EagleFiler on my Mac. And normally never get looked at again.
Fantastic episode. It harked back to the days of yore when MPU focused on apps and what you can do with them.
Yes I maybe able to make this work, also, I was just trying to save the PDF really didn’t want to save the entire email but I have to that will work as well
This maybe a silly question but how do I use the OCR in Hazel? Say I scan a receipt, what would I need to do to identify the word Receipt in the text and then pull out the info of the receipt. Say I bought a MacSparky field guide. How could it then auto rename to MacSparky Field Guide Receipt?
There is a rule you can you create for “if document contains” X, do this. You define X with what to look for, in this case “receipt”. The problem is if your file source didn’t OCR it, you need to do that first. Next problem is if the OCR is not accurate, that can cause problems.
I have used Hazel for years, sometimes everything works perfectly, but usually I have to spend some time playing around to get everything working, and still once a year my rules will just sometimes break when the source changes something.
MacSparky’s guide is highly recommended for learning Hazel.
I had a phone bill once when I had a landline and I Think if I remember right I had a date match. It would work fine all year long until we got to May and for some reason they Would change the date format for the month of May only and it wouldn’t work.
Until I listened to this episode I didn’t know that there was a Hazel 6. If I do a check for updates in Hazel 5 it doesn’t tell me.
On Wednesday I was setting up a new rule to match a scanned bill. It wasn’t matching some of the contents. But rather than playing with it I thought about the episode and that one of the major improvements was text matching. So I bought Hazel 6 and my rule just started working–no additional work needed.
He really isn’t very good at marketing. I like that he isn’t forcing it down our throats, and Hazel 5 still works fine, but I wouldn’t mind a little popup (once) telling me there is a new paid version. It is an app I am glad to support and appreciate not going subscription based.
Especially since 6 is a major version.
I hate the apps that release little bug fixes all the time and keep popping up that there’s new stuff. But for a new major version, a nice popup telling me why I should upgrade is actually appreciated.
I was surprised to see Hazel 6 because I thought I’d just bought Hazel 5 in the last year or so, but I got it in 2020! I’ll likely upgrade after the first of the year since I’ve already spent a good bit of my app budget on other items, but even though my uses for Hazel are simple, I use it weekly and we all need to support indie devs as much as we can.
Same here. Where I live, it is quite common to authorize companies to automatically deduct amounts from the bank account. 90% of my bills are paid this way, and I do receive a confirmation by email, I just move those to DevonThink. It is rare for me to have to pay a bill manually, in that case it is almost always possible to pay directly using the Bank App on the phone by scanning a QR-code.
I did buy Hazel some time ago, but struggle to find good use-cases now. I enjoyed this episode it gave me some ideas