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Add to SafariWhen comparing Hazel vs Magnet, 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 Magnet is ranked 51st. 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.
Question 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 Keyboard centric
Easy to learn keyboard shortcuts.
Pro Intuitive handling
Just drag the window to one of the sides of the screen and it snaps there. This is especially useful for those who can't be bothered remembering the shortcuts.
Pro Cheap
At $0.99, it is not that expensive.
Pro Mouse controllable
Supports dragging a window along the edges of the screen to activate.
Pro Do not have to learn or remember keyboard shortcuts
Pro It's often on sale
For example, at the writing of this pro it's currently at $1.
Pro Up to six external displays supported
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.
Con Cannot setup custom sizes and window positions
Unfortunately, you can only move windows to preset positions.
Con Can only be purchased from the App Store
Magnet is only available in App Store.
Con Can't hide the menu bar icon
It would've been nice to be able to hide the icon so it doesn't clutter the menu bar.
Con Interference when switching between folders
Default Folder-X app "warns" that Magnet App may interfere with it's ability to switch between folders in Open and Save dialogue boxes.
Con Causes cursor bugs in IntelliJ IDEs
Unfortunately, Magnet causes the caret to bounce around in IntelliJ IDEs, this is very annoying.
