Both apps make your Mac clean itself. They just believe in very different things.
Updated September 2026 · Written by the developer of Tidy — bias disclosed, honesty guaranteed. Hazel facts checked on noodlesoft.com on September 28, 2026 (Hazel 6.1.2).
| Tidy | Hazel | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9 once, lifetime updates | $42 once ($20 to upgrade from an earlier version) |
| Time to first result | ~2 minutes, zero config | Sample rules offered at first launch; beyond those, you write your own |
| Create rules in plain language (AI) | Yes — on-device, macOS 26 | No |
| Rename files from their content | Yes, with no rules to write — it reads images, scanned PDFs, Office files, saved emails and more, and proposes the name; free-form AI naming prompts too | Yes — for years from files with a text layer, and since Hazel 6 also from scans and images (on-the-fly text recognition); you write the match pattern for each kind of document |
| Search inside scanned PDFs & images later | Yes — what it reads stays in an encrypted index on your Mac; press ⌥Space in any app | Not what it's for — Noodlesoft: its text recognition “does not save the OCR-ed text to the file. You should use a dedicated OCR program for that.” |
| Undo what an AI agent did to a folder | Yes, since 2.9 — protect a folder first, see what was moved, renamed and deleted, restore it in one click | Not what it's for — Hazel's Revert (Finder's contextual menu) undoes what Hazel's own rules did to the files you select |
| Dry-run mode (preview before anything moves) | Yes — the full plan of every move, before anything happens | Rule preview shows how files match; Hazel 6 added Revert in the Finder's contextual menu |
| Ejects .dmg + trashes the installer | Yes, automatic | Partially — a rule can trash old .dmg files, but ejecting the mounted volume needs a script |
| Watch any folder, deeply nested | Downloads, the Desktop if you add it, and any other folder you pick; subfolders optional, folder by folder | Yes — any folders, recursive |
| AppleScript / shell hooks | No | Yes |
| Interface languages | English · Spanish · German · Portuguese · French | English |
| Safety design | Never deletes; Trash-first; only touches new files; run-level undo | Hazel 6 added Revert: from the Finder, it reverts attributes on files Hazel processed; deletion behavior depends on the rules you write |
| Privacy | 100% on-device, no account, its only network call is the update check | Also fully local |
Updated September 28, 2026 — rechecked against Hazel 6.1.2 (no change to its text recognition or Revert) and added two rows: searching inside scanned files, and Tidy 2.9's safety net for AI agents. Updated September 5, 2026 — the language row said three languages (Tidy speaks five since 2.6) and the subfolder row said Tidy never enters subfolders, which stopped being true in 2.2, when they became optional per folder. Both corrected. Earlier, August 14, 2026 — a MacRumors reader pointed out our Hazel column was written against an older Hazel and didn't credit Hazel 6's on-the-fly OCR matching and Revert File. He was right; the table above reflects the correction.
If those three points are what you need, buy Hazel — sincerely.
„Aufräumen kann so einfach sein.“
Both apps can read the text in a scanned PDF. Hazel uses it to match a rule and a pattern you wrote, and doesn't save it to the file. Tidy uses it to propose a name with no rule written, and keeps the text in an encrypted index so you can find the file later with ⌥Space. Hazel is the deeper rule engine; Tidy works with no rules written.
Hazel 6 recognizes text on the fly to evaluate a rule, but, as Noodlesoft notes, it doesn't save the recognized text to the file, so it isn't a search tool. Tidy keeps the text it reads from scans and screenshots in an encrypted index on your Mac: press ⌥Space in any app and type a word from the page.
No, and it isn't trying to be. If you want Downloads and the Desktop to organize themselves, Tidy does it with no rules written. If you rely on nested rules or scripts, keep Hazel.
Yes. You can keep Hazel for complex workflows and let Tidy handle screenshots, installers and Downloads. Just don't point both at the same folder with conflicting rules.
Yes — universal app, macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel. Only the optional AI features (plain-language rules and free-form naming prompts) require Apple Intelligence on macOS 26.
Yes. One payment, lifetime updates, 14-day money-back guarantee, no subscription.
Install Tidy today and your Mac starts tidying itself before your coffee cools down.
Get Tidy — $9 onceComparison based on publicly available pricing and features; Hazel checked on noodlesoft.com on September 28, 2026. Hazel is a trademark of Noodlesoft, LLC — a genuinely good app we respect; this page exists because people keep asking us for the differences. Corrections welcome at hola@tidymacapp.com.
Also worth reading: Tidy vs NameQuick · Tidy vs Zush · Tidy vs Keep It Shot · Tidy vs Sortio · Apple’s on-device model takes no images · The model stole a word · A Mac file organizer with no subscription