An automatic file sorter for the folder that fills up fastest
Every browser, chat app and email client drops its files in the same place, and after a few months the Downloads folder is hundreds of installers, PDFs and photos in one long list. Windows has no setting that sorts it for you. The usual fixes are a script run from Task Scheduler, or a browser extension that only sees files from that one browser.
Downloads Organizer is a file sorter that watches the folder itself, so it does not matter where a file came from. Shortly after a download completes, the file moves into a folder named for its kind: a receipt into Documents, a setup file into Programs, a zip into Compressed. Partial downloads such as .crdownload and .part files are left alone, and a file is only moved once its size has stopped changing.
The main window draws the result as a rack of pigeonholes with a running count on each. Whichever one received the latest file glows, and clicking a pigeonhole opens its folder in File Explorer.
How to organize the Downloads folder automatically
Setup is a handful of switches in one window, and nothing moves until a folder is being watched.
- Under Watched folders, leave Downloads switched on. Switch on Desktop too, or click Add a folder for any other location.
- Under When a file arrives, choose Move, or Copy to leave the original where it was. Tick Include subfolders if files land in folders of their own.
- Close the window. It keeps working from the notification area and starts with Windows for as long as at least one folder is watched.
- To tidy the files that were there before you started, click Sort a folder now and pick the folder.
Sixteen file types, each with a folder name you choose
Photos land in Images and PDFs in Documents, while the less obvious kinds get folders too: CAD drawings, 3D models, Vector art, Fonts, Code, Disk images and Backups, alongside Videos, Spreadsheets, eBooks, Archives, Installers and programs, and Music and audio. Anything unrecognized goes to Everything else. The list behind it covers more than 3,000 extensions.
Open Settings, then File types, to switch off any kind you would rather leave in place, and to rename its folder under Folder names. By default each kind gets a folder inside the watched folder. Sort into sends everything to one folder of your own instead, such as a sorted area on a second drive.
A desktop file organizer you can trust with real files
Moving files without asking only works if nothing can be lost. Two rules make that true here. First, nothing is overwritten: if the destination has a file by that name already, the arrival gets a number added instead, such as invoice (2).pdf, and the Last run list marks it renamed.
Second, every run can be reversed. Last run lists each file and where it went. Undo this run puts every one back in its original place, and when the run was a copy, its duplicates are sent to the Recycle Bin rather than deleted outright.
