A month ago, I posted about how to use Hazel to process downloaded PDF files. It was getting pretty technical, so I decided to end it before taking it one step further: how to use Hazel to apply OpenMeta tags to the files.
Both in the comments and in my email, there have been a lot of requests to cover the tagging piece, so that is what I am going to do by popular demand. Keep in mind that this is Mac only and is a bit on the technical side, so if you aren’t comfortable using the command line (or have no desire to use Hazel to tag your files), you’ll want to sit this one out.
First, Noodlesoft calls Hazel’s support of OpenMeta tags unofficial and experimental, so keep that in mind. If you still want to go ahead:
Install the OpenMeta Command Line Tool
- Go to the OpenMeta Project Downloads page and download the latest version of the openmeta_commandline zip. to your hard drive.
- Double-click on the zip file and it will extract a file just called openmeta. Move that file to a location that you remember. In my example, I am going to put it in /Applications
Tell Hazel To Enable Super-Secret OpenMeta Support
- Go into Terminal. The easiest way to do that is to open Spotlight by going Command-Spacebar and typing Terminal
- Type the following:
defaults write com.noodlesoft.Hazel OMToolPath /Applications/openmeta
Obviously, you will want to replace the ending path with wherever you stored your openmeta program that you just unzipped.
Here is a screenshot of me having ran the command:
Apply Your Tags
Now, lets revisit the moving-PDF rule from the last Hazel PDF post:
- In the “Do the following:” section, click the + sign and then the drop-down list. You will now see a new option that wasn’t there before: “Add OpenMeta Tags”
- Choose that, and you can now add your comma-separated list of tags. If you want, you can have it replace all the existing tags with these new ones. Here is my final rule:
- Now when I look at the file with TagIt, you can see that it has the two tags that I assigned with Hazel:
Again, a bit on the technical side, but if you are someone that uses tags in your workflow, this may help automate things.
