When I OCR a file do I then need to move it out of the folder to prevent the rule to keep running over and over again?
I ran through Davis Sparks Field guide on Hazel, one application instruction is that you put a note near the three dots m that if you hold down the option key you get more choices or words to that effect.
I am processing years worth of PDFs with various different files sources which of course all have all kinda of different date formats.
Are you aware of a rule that someone may have created that no matter what the date format is, it will make it available to put into the file name?
If not, what do you recommend? Do I run a rule that looks for the date in the MM/DD/YYYY format, pause it and then run the rule for the January 26, 2024 format?
For one, you don’t need to pause the hazel script and run it again necessarily. Hazel rules allow for blocks of ALL/EITHER conditions. Hence you can use a block of „content contains match“ date format 1 OR „content contains match“ date format 2.
you could then add additional conditions as wanted/needed for PDF filetype and the like.
As for the actions to perform you could e.g. either flag them as „processed“ or move the files into another folder so that they don’t processed again.
Hope I made myself halfway clear . This way I managed to sort through a couple hundred PDF documents when going paperless a couple years ago.
I can probably hack a screenshot together to better explain what I meant .
I think you should be able to use the DATE LAST MATCHED = BLANK condition to exclude PDFs that were scanned by Hazel and not acted upon. There are several options besides BLANK that may be more useful for your case.
Once you have found the Date match, how do you then copy it, convert it into format you want to use and put it into the file name.
I know that if I could finally get Hazel working, it would really make my life so much easier going forward, but it always seems to get placed on the back burner.
I have some free time coming up and I really need to focus on it.
It would be so awesome if you could share things that you learned to help me jumpstart the process.
I told my wife, I want the following quote on my gravestone: “Tomorrow I’m going to get organized”
I was about to share a screenshot but since I’m unable to upload any image here at the moment I need to try to explain :
In the action section when you add a rename step for example you will find those custom dates again from the previous screenshot under the name you have given them: eg „dd/mm/yyyy“. You can then use those variables to use for renaming. The powerful part is that in this step you can change the pattern of the variable to you needs and rearrange the parts of the date eg transform the found pattern of „dd/mm/yyyy“ into „yyyymmdd“.
I hope I made myself a bit clear - not easy to describe solely in text . I’ll try to add a screenshot once that is possible again .
. This way I managed to sort through a couple hundred PDF documents when going paperless a couple years ago.
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. I’ll try to add a screenshot once that is possible again