When comparing Hazel vs Better Touch Tool, the Slant community recommends Hazel for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Hazel is ranked 14th while Better Touch Tool is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose Hazel is:
Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they are supposed to be.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Automatically cleans up and maintains folders
Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they are supposed to be.
Pro Very customizable
More so than alternatives.
Pro Cleans up after uninstalling an application
When you delete an application Hazel will pop up and show you a list of attached files belonging to the deleted app to clean your uninstall more correctly.
Pro iLife Support
Hazel features new actions to import your files into iPhoto or iTunes. And with Hazel 3, you can import into Aperture projects and folders as well.
Pro Process files depending on their content
Its in-file search criteria allows it to extract dates from files (e.g., to add to the filename) and to categorize recurrent files (e.g., receipts) into subfolders (or to treat them in some specific way).
Pro Endlessly customizable
Pro Extendability
Allows user to extend my MBP with touchbar by creating custom actions per app. Also supports system-wide integration (touchbar actions).
Pro BTT makes it simple to sync your hotkey, Touch Bar and gesture setup between several machines
Pro Sync settings in the cloud
Pro There's a free companion app for iOS that you can use to remote control your Mac
Pro Supports Apple script, bash, javascript
Pro Customize window button behaviour
Pro Make your own menu bar items
Pro Active community
Pro Built-in clipboard manager
Pro Highly configurable window moving / window snapping options
Pro Key sequences
Supports key sequences for things like text expansion.
Pro Supports MIDI devices (keyboards, DAW controllers, etc.)
Listen for MIDI events and have them control anything. For example you could use a DJ controller in your favorite video editor, etc.
Pro Lets you configure your external mouse's 4th and 5th button per app
Pro Record gestures / drawings and assign them to actions
Pro Developer is regularly adding features / improvements
Cons
Con Expensive
Con Doesn't work well with subfolders
The rules don't work very well with subfolders and working with archive files (zip, rar, gz, 7z, etc) is also limited.
Con Rules creation is a time consuming process
To really enjoy the power of Hazel, you will need to progressively create more and more rules to manage each specific kind of file, but this process is slow, quite annoying when you have many similar rules, and can only be learned on the way, as you find new uses for it.
