Keyboard Maestro vs Hazel: Choosing the Right Mac Automation Tool

Keyboard Maestro is a general-purpose Mac automation tool that lets you build macros with triggers, conditional logic, GUI scripting, and hundreds of built-in actions. Hazel is a file automation tool from Noodlesoft that watches folders and applies rules to files automatically, handling organization, renaming, tagging, and cleanup without manual intervention.

Both run on macOS, both automate tasks you’d otherwise do by hand, and both show up on every list of must-have Mac utilities. That’s where the similarity ends. Keyboard Maestro is a programmable macro engine that can control almost anything on your Mac. Hazel is an intelligent filing system that organizes your files while you work on other things.

Here are the key differences at a glance:

Primary purpose: Hazel automates file organization with rule-based folder watching; Keyboard Maestro automates everything else with macros and triggers

Automation style: Hazel runs passively in the background, monitoring folders 24/7; Keyboard Maestro macros fire from hotkeys, typed strings, schedules, app events, or dozens of other trigger types

File handling: Hazel has deep, specialized file intelligence including pattern matching, OCR-based content reading, and Finder metadata integration; Keyboard Maestro can move and rename files but treats file operations as one capability among hundreds

Learning curve: Hazel’s rule builder is visual and approachable; Keyboard Maestro’s macro editor is powerful but takes dedicated learning time

Pricing: Hazel costs $42 one-time; Keyboard Maestro costs $36 one-time

Many Mac power users run both simultaneously, and for good reason. These tools complement each other better than almost any other pair in the Mac automation ecosystem. This comparison breaks down where each tool shines so you can decide whether you need Hazel, Keyboard Maestro, or both.

What is Hazel?

Hazel is a macOS utility from Noodlesoft that automates file management through rule-based folder watching. You define rules for specific folders, and Hazel monitors those folders continuously, applying your rules to every file that matches. The current version is Hazel 6 (6.1.2 as of February 2026), and it requires macOS 13 Ventura or later with native Apple Silicon support.

The core concept is simple: for each folder you want to manage, you create rules with conditions and actions. Conditions test file attributes like name, extension, date added, date modified, size, tags, source URL, and content. Actions determine what happens to matching files: move, copy, rename, tag, archive, import into Photos or Music, upload to a server, run a shell script, or send to the Trash.

What separates Hazel from basic file management scripts is its pattern matching engine. Hazel can extract components from filenames using custom patterns, match files based on content within documents, and read text from non-OCR PDFs and images using built-in text recognition. A single rule can look inside a scanned receipt, read the vendor name and amount, rename the file according to a convention like “2026-02-15 Vendor Name $42.00.pdf,” tag it as an expense, and file it in the appropriate folder. All of that happens automatically the moment the file appears.

Hazel also manages your Trash. It can delete files older than a set threshold, clear the Trash when it reaches a certain size, and use its App Sweep feature to catch leftover support files when you delete an app. App Sweep detects when you trash an app and offers to remove related caches, preferences, and support folders that would otherwise linger on your drive.

Where Hazel earns its keep:

Set-it-and-forget-it operation. Once you build your rules, Hazel runs silently in the background. No hotkeys to press, no macros to trigger. Files get organized as they arrive.

Preview before applying. You can preview which files a rule will match before activating it. Useful when a rule could touch hundreds of files and you want to confirm the match before it runs.

Hazel works with Spotlight metadata, Finder tags, file colors, comments, and extended attributes natively. Tagged files show up correctly everywhere in macOS because Hazel reads and writes the same metadata Finder uses.

Hazel 6 added the ability to undo file changes by right-clicking a file in Finder, restoring it to its original location with its original name and tags.

The limitations are clear and intentional. Hazel does file automation and nothing else. It cannot launch apps, control windows, click buttons, type text, manage your clipboard, or interact with the system beyond file operations. These aren’t shortcomings. They’re Hazel’s design philosophy: do one category of tasks extremely well and stay out of everything else.

What is Keyboard Maestro?

Keyboard Maestro is a macOS automation app from Stairways Software that lets you build macros combining triggers, conditions, and actions to control nearly anything on your Mac. The current version is 11.0.4, runs on macOS 10.13 High Sierra or later, and supports Apple Silicon natively. A license is $36 for one user on up to five Macs.

The scope is genuinely hard to summarize. App control, window management, text expansion, clipboard history, GUI scripting, web actions, shell script execution, conditional logic, variables, loops, and scheduled tasks all live within its macro engine. If you want a detailed look at what Keyboard Maestro does, the Keyboard Maestro vs TextExpander and Keyboard Maestro vs Alfred comparisons cover its feature set at length.

Keyboard Maestro does have file operations. A folder trigger fires a macro when files appear in a watched directory. Move, rename, copy, and delete actions handle the basics. You can read file attributes, set variables from filenames, and use conditional logic to route files based on properties. But file management is one capability among hundreds, not its focus.

The trigger system is where Keyboard Maestro separates itself from every other Mac tool. Fire a macro from a hotkey, typed string, USB device connection, app launch, time of day, folder change, login event, remote trigger, MIDI note, cron-style schedule, or wireless network change. That range of triggers combined with hundreds of available actions gives Keyboard Maestro coverage that no single-purpose tool matches.

The honest trade-off is complexity. Drop new users into the macro editor and they’re staring at a blank canvas with hundreds of options and no obvious starting point. Most spend their first few weeks figuring out what to build before figuring out how to build it. Worth it, for most people who stick with it. But it’s a real investment.

Feature comparison

Feature | Hazel 6 | Keyboard Maestro 11
Folder watching | Core feature with continuous monitoring, rich conditions | Yes, via folder trigger (basic)
File rules/conditions | Extensive: name, extension, date, size, tags, content, source URL, custom patterns | Limited: requires building conditional logic manually with if/then actions
File renaming | Pattern-based renaming with date, counter, and extracted text components | Yes, through rename action
Tagging | Full Finder tag support: add, remove, match by tag | Limited tag support
Content-based matching | Yes, reads document content, OCR for images and non-OCR PDFs | No built-in document content reading
General automation | No | Yes, hundreds of actions for app control, window management, scripting
Text expansion | No | Yes, via typed string triggers
GUI scripting | No | Yes, click buttons, select menus, interact with UI elements
Conditional logic | Within file rules only | Full if/then/else, loops, try/catch, regex matching
Trigger types | Folder changes only (automatic) | Hotkey, typed string, USB device, app event, time, MIDI, folder, cron, and more
Trash management | Yes, with App Sweep for leftover files | Basic file deletion only
Scripting support | Shell scripts, AppleScript, Automator, Shortcuts | AppleScript, JavaScript, shell, Swift
Learning curve | Low to moderate | Steep
Price | $42 one-time | $36 one-time

Where Hazel excels

Hazel wins every file automation task where you want to define rules once and never think about them again.

Download folder cleanup. This is the gateway use case for most Hazel users. New files land in your Downloads folder throughout the day: PDFs, images, zip archives, installers, spreadsheets, random text files. Hazel rules sort each file type to the right destination the moment it arrives. DMG installers go to an Applications staging folder. PDFs go to a Documents subfolder. Images go to a Screenshots or Photos folder. ZIP files get extracted and the archive gets trashed. Set it up once, and your Downloads folder manages itself permanently.

Hazel’s pattern engine also handles smart file renaming that would require significant scripting work in any other tool. Bank statements that download as “Statement_Feb2026.pdf” get renamed to “2026-02 Chase Statement.pdf” and filed into your Finance folder. Photos from your camera with names like “IMG_4523.jpg” can be renamed with the date taken and a descriptive tag. Hazel extracts date components, text patterns, and metadata to build filenames that are actually useful for finding things later.

OCR-based document filing. Hazel 6 reads text from scanned PDFs and images without a separate OCR step. Point Hazel at a folder where you scan receipts, and it reads the vendor name, matches it against your rules, renames the file, tags it, and sorts it into the right subfolder. An accountant who scans hundreds of receipts per month saves hours of manual sorting with a handful of Hazel rules.

Hazel also handles tasks Keyboard Maestro doesn’t address. Trash management with configurable thresholds keeps your drive from filling up with forgotten files. App Sweep catches the preference files and caches that apps leave behind when you drag them to the Trash. Finder tag manipulation, Spotlight comment editing, and color label assignment all happen automatically within rules. These are deeply integrated macOS file operations that Hazel was built to handle.

Reliability is what makes Hazel hard to replace with a general-purpose tool. Hazel rules run continuously. No hotkey, no trigger, no remembering to run a macro. The moment a file meets your conditions, Hazel acts on it. For file organization, that passive monitoring model beats any trigger-based approach. It also reduces cognitive load in a way that’s easy to underestimate. Instead of deciding where each file goes, what to name it, and when to clean up, you define those decisions once in rules and stop thinking about them.

Where Keyboard Maestro excels

Keyboard Maestro wins every automation task that goes beyond file management.

App workflows. A macro that detects when you launch your email client, resizes the window to the right half of your screen, opens your task manager on the left half, and sets your Slack status to “Checking email” is a normal Keyboard Maestro setup. Hazel cannot interact with apps at all. For a broader look at what macro software can automate, Keyboard Maestro consistently leads the category.

System-level control. Adjust audio volume, toggle Wi-Fi, change display resolution, mount network drives, eject disks. Keyboard Maestro reaches into system operations that sit entirely outside Hazel’s scope.

The conditional logic engine goes deep. A Keyboard Maestro macro can check the frontmost app, read the clipboard contents, test a variable against a regular expression, query a web API, and branch into different actions based on every result. That level of decision-making turns macros into programs. Hazel’s conditions are powerful within the context of file attributes, but Keyboard Maestro’s conditional engine applies to everything on your system.

GUI scripting. Some apps don’t expose their functionality through AppleScript or keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard Maestro’s “Click at Found Image” and menu selection actions let you automate those stubborn apps anyway, clicking buttons and selecting menu items in any running app. Hazel doesn’t interact with app interfaces.

Keyboard Maestro also handles text expansion through typed string triggers, clipboard history with named clipboards, window tiling and positioning, and scheduled tasks that run at specific times rather than in response to file changes. For users whose automation needs go beyond file management — which covers most people who get serious about automation — Keyboard Maestro covers ground that nothing else does.

Keyboard Maestro handles basic text expansion, but for fill-in-the-blank templates, team-shared Snippet libraries, and cross-platform use on Windows, iPhone, and iPad, TextExpander is built for exactly that. See how they compare

Using both together

The Mac automation community figured this out years ago: Hazel and Keyboard Maestro aren’t competing tools. They handle different layers of your workflow.

Think of Mac automation as a stack. Built-in text replacement and Shortcuts handle simple tasks at the bottom. Hazel owns file organization in the middle. Keyboard Maestro covers general-purpose automation and anything involving app control above that. AppleScript and shell scripts step in for tasks that need programmatic precision at the top. You pick the right tool for each layer rather than forcing one tool to cover all of them.

In practice, the division between Hazel and Keyboard Maestro is clean. Hazel handles all file work: sorting downloads, renaming documents, archiving old files, managing Trash, organizing anything that lands in a watched folder. Keyboard Maestro handles everything else: app control, window management, text expansion, system automation, any workflow triggered by hotkeys, schedules, or events. Both run quietly in the background. They use minimal resources and don’t interfere with each other.

This combination also makes each tool’s configuration simpler. We’ve watched users try to replicate Hazel in Keyboard Maestro. It works, technically. You end up with a five-step macro for something Hazel handles with a three-line rule. As for replicating Keyboard Maestro’s app control or GUI scripting in Hazel: that’s not possible at all.

Some practical workflows that benefit from running both:

Invoice processing: Hazel watches a Scans folder, reads vendor names from scanned invoices using OCR, renames and tags each file, and moves it to an Invoices subfolder. A Keyboard Maestro macro triggered by a hotkey opens your accounting app, navigates to the upload screen, and attaches the most recent invoice from that folder.

Screenshot management: Hazel sorts screenshots by app name and date, renaming them with descriptive patterns. A Keyboard Maestro macro bound to a hotkey takes a screenshot of a selected region, annotates it with text, and emails it to a recipient without touching Finder.

Project setup: A Keyboard Maestro macro creates a new project folder structure, opens the relevant apps, and arranges windows. Hazel rules monitor the project’s inbox subfolder and automatically file incoming assets into the right directories based on file type and naming conventions.

You can also connect the two tools directly. Keyboard Maestro can drop files into Hazel-watched folders to trigger Hazel rules as part of a larger macro sequence. Hazel rules can execute shell scripts that trigger Keyboard Maestro macros via its command line tool or AppleScript interface. They interoperate cleanly.

Add TextExpander to your automation stack for reusable Snippets that work across every app on Mac, Windows, iPhone, and iPad — no triggers or macros required. Explore TextExpander features

Pricing comparison

Both tools use one-time pricing with no subscriptions.

Hazel pricing

New license: $42 for a single user

Family pack: $65 for household use

Upgrading from Hazel 5 or earlier costs $20

A license covers Hazel 6 with free updates within the major version. A 14-day free trial is available from noodlesoft.com. Hazel runs as a background process and requires no separate app window to stay active.

Keyboard Maestro pricing

New license: $36 for one user on up to five Macs

Upgrade from version 10 or earlier: $25

No subscription, no renewal fees. Stairways Software offers reasonable upgrade pricing with generous free-upgrade windows for recent purchasers.

Running both

The combined cost is $78 with no ongoing fees. That’s less than many single-purpose subscription apps charge per year, and together Hazel and Keyboard Maestro cover file automation and general-purpose macro automation across your entire Mac workflow.

Frequently asked questions

Can Keyboard Maestro replace Hazel for file automation?

For simple file-sorting tasks, Keyboard Maestro’s folder trigger and basic file actions can handle the basics. For anything involving pattern-based renaming, OCR content matching, Finder tag management, Trash cleanup, or App Sweep, Hazel’s specialized toolset is significantly more capable. Replicating Hazel’s file rule engine in Keyboard Maestro means building complex multi-step macros for each rule, and you’d still be missing features like preview-before-apply and file reversion.

Can Hazel replace Keyboard Maestro?

No. Hazel handles file automation only. It cannot launch apps, control windows, expand text, manage clipboards, interact with app interfaces, or run macros based on hotkeys, schedules, or app events. If your automation needs are limited to file organization, Hazel alone may be enough. For anything beyond files, you need a general-purpose automation tool.

Do Hazel and Keyboard Maestro conflict on Mac?

No. Both run as background processes and operate in different domains. Hazel monitors folders and processes files. Keyboard Maestro listens for triggers and executes macros. They share no overlapping system hooks and have no known compatibility issues. Many Mac users have run both simultaneously for years.

Which should I buy first?

Depends on your primary pain point. If your Downloads folder is a disaster, your desktop is covered in unsorted files, and you spend time manually renaming and filing documents, start with Hazel. You’ll see results within an hour of setup. If you want to automate app workflows, build hotkey shortcuts, manage windows, or create complex multi-step automation, start with Keyboard Maestro. Both tools offer free trials, so you can evaluate each before buying.

What about text expansion on Mac?

Hazel doesn’t include text expansion. Keyboard Maestro handles basic text expansion through typed string triggers, which works well for individual use on a single Mac. For fill-in-the-blank templates, team-shared Snippet libraries, or cross-platform text expansion that extends to Windows, iPhone, and iPad, a dedicated text expansion tool covers that ground. The Keyboard Maestro vs TextExpander comparison details where the two approaches diverge.

Save your most-used text as Snippets and expand them anywhere — on Mac, Windows, iPhone, or iPad. Start your free trial

Related resources

Keyboard Maestro vs TextExpander for a comparison of KM’s typed string triggers against dedicated text expansion

Keyboard Maestro vs Alfred for a comparison with another popular Mac productivity tool

Keyboard Maestro vs Automator for a comparison with Apple’s built-in automation tool

Alfred alternatives for a broader look at Mac productivity tools

Best macro software for a roundup of Mac automation tools

What are text Snippets? An introduction to text expansion

TextExpander features for fill-in fields, team sharing, and cross-platform text expansion

Try TextExpander free for 30 days