Archyv vs Hazel

What Hazel is

Hazel is a folder-automation app for the Mac from Noodlesoft. It “watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create”. A rule pairs conditions — name, extension, kind, size, tags, the date a file was added, created, modified or opened, its contents, the site it was downloaded from — with actions, and it runs whenever a matching file appears. The action list is long: move, copy, rename, sort into a subfolder, sync, upload by FTP, SFTP or WebDAV, add or remove tags, set a colour label, zip or unarchive, open, import into Photos, Music or the TV app, run a Shortcut, AppleScript, JavaScript, Automator workflow or shell script, display a notification, and pause.

The current release is Hazel 6.1.2 (18 February 2026), which requires macOS 13 Ventura or later. A single-user licence is US$42, a family pack for up to five household members is US$65, and an upgrade from any earlier version is US$20; updates within a major version are free. The trial runs for 14 days with every feature enabled except rule export, after which Hazel drops into a demo mode that watches one folder with two active rules.

Hazel 6 added on-the-fly text recognition so rules can read non-OCRed PDFs and images, custom list attributes for capturing lists such as tags, and a Revert command: right-click a file Hazel has moved and put it back. Beyond filing, Hazel manages the Trash — deleting files older or larger than a limit — and its App Sweep offers to remove an application’s support files when you throw the application away.

What Archyv is

Archyv is a native Mac app that runs one change across a whole folder of photos and video: renaming from metadata, format conversion, duplicate detection, metadata and copyright editing, folder generation, templated transfer. It works on a selection you make, with a preview before and a change history after. It is not a photo catalogue, a RAW developer, a backup tool or a file-watching service — and that last one is the whole of this comparison.

Where Hazel wins

• It runs without you. Hazel watches folders continuously and files things as they arrive, forever. Archyv does nothing until you select files and start a process. If you want photos sorted automatically the moment they land, Hazel is the right tool and Archyv is not.
• It automates everything, not just photos. Downloads, invoices, screenshots, archives — any file, with conditions that can read a PDF’s contents and actions that reach into Photos, Music, Shortcuts and shell scripts.
• Price. US$42 is well under half Archyv’s price, and the family pack covers a household.
• Integration. Shortcuts, AppleScript, Automator and shell scripts as actions; Spotlight attributes as conditions; a Revert command in Finder itself.
• Trash and application clean-up. Nothing in Archyv touches either.

Where Archyv wins

• Renaming from what the camera wrote. Archyv’s templates draw on Photographer, Date / Time, Camera, Location, Descriptive and File variables read from the file’s own metadata — {yyyy}-{mm}-{dd}-{seq:4} from the capture date, not the date the file arrived on the disk. Hazel’s rename patterns offer the file’s added, created and modified dates, a counter, and any Spotlight attribute; its attribute reference lists nothing from EXIF, so as far as its documentation shows, a capture-date rename needs a script.
• A preview of the result. Hazel’s Preview Rule “only tells you whether the conditions match; it does not run any of your actions”. Archyv shows the resulting names live and, in Simulation Mode, writes every change to the log without touching a file.
• A history you can undo. Hazel 6’s Revert puts a moved file back. Archyv keeps a change history across its processes so a run can be undone afterwards.
• The batch jobs a rule cannot do. Duplicate detection with a side-by-side review, metadata and copyright writing through the bundled ExifTool, photographer attribution into EXIF, IPTC and XMP creator fields, conversion to JPEG, HEIC, AVIF or JPEG XL, folder generation from a CSV, and File Transfer that copies or moves with checksum verification and organises into folders by date, photographer, camera, location, rating or keyword.
• RAW and video as first-class files. Twenty RAW formats and eleven video formats are read throughout, with RAW+JPEG pairs recognised.

Side by side

Which one to choose

Choose Hazel if…

• files should be handled as they arrive, with nobody at the keyboard;
• the job is broader than photos — downloads, documents, invoices, screenshots;
• you want Shortcuts or scripts wired into the rules;
• filing is the whole job — it is the cheaper tool and it is the right one.

Choose Archyv if…

• you have a backlog — a drive, an archive, a season of shoots — to rename, file, credit or convert once, and you want to see it before it happens and undo it if it goes wrong;
• the names and folders have to come from the capture date, photographer or camera rather than the file’s dates;
• you also need duplicate detection, copyright metadata or format conversion.

Using both

The jobs differ in shape, so the two fit together well. Hazel is a standing rule on the folder where files land: move anything new from the card reader into a dated inbox, tag it, notify you. Archyv is the considered pass afterwards — rename the batch from its capture dates and photographer, write the copyright, find the duplicates, transfer the set into the archive with verification — previewed first and undoable after. Neither does the other’s job, and neither pretends to.

Next: the full comparison page covers Finder, ExifTool, Bridge and the dedicated renamers too. For the pass Archyv does after Hazel has done its filing, see sorting photos into folders by date and a reusable transfer profile.

Facts about Hazel were checked on its own site on 17 September 2026. If something here is out of date, tell us and it will be corrected. Official site: Hazel.