Folder watcher
The Folder watcher integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more.
[Learn more] adds Watchdog file system monitoring, publishing events on the Home Assistant bus on the creation/deletion/modification of files within configured folders. The monitored event_type are:
closedcreateddeletedmodifiedmoved
Configured folders must be added to allowlist_external_dirs. Note that by default folder monitoring is recursive, meaning that the contents of sub-folders are also monitored.
Configuration
To add the Folder watcher integration to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:
If the above My button doesn’t work, you can also perform the following steps manually:
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Browse to your Home Assistant instance.
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In the bottom right corner, select the Add Integration button.
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From the list, select Folder watcher.
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Follow the instructions on screen to complete the setup.
Patterns
Pattern matching using fnmatch can be used to limit filesystem monitoring to only files which match the configured patterns.
As example to monitor specific file, as example YAML and text-files add *.yaml and *.txt.
Automations
The elements the events contain are:
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event_type: matching theevent_typeof the filter (one ofcreated,moved,modified,deleted,closed) -
path: The full path to the file (e.g. “/hello/world.txt”) -
file: The name of the file (e.g. “world.txt”) -
folder: The folder path (e.g. “/hello”)
When the event_type is moved, the file details are for the source file and destination details are included:
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dest_path: The full path to the moved file (e.g. “/hello/world.txt”) -
dest_file: The name of the moved file (e.g. “world.txt”) -
dest_folder: The folder moved path (e.g. “/hello”)
Automations can be triggered on filesystem event data using a template. The following automation will send a notification with the name and folder of new files added to that folder:
#Send notification for new image (including the image itself)
automation:
alias: "New file alert"
trigger:
platform: event
event_type: folder_watcher
event_data:
event_type: created
action:
service: notify.notify
data:
title: New image captured!
message: "Created {{ trigger.event.data.file }} in {{ trigger.event.data.folder }}"
data:
file: "{{ trigger.event.data.path }}"