Website: desktidy.vercel.app
Your macOS Desktop, organized automatically. Drop anything on your Desktop and DeskTidy files it into the right folder about twenty seconds later — and shows you a clickable notification telling you where it went. No dragging, no thinking, no maintenance.
Built for people whose Desktop turns into a landfill of screenshots, downloads, and half-named files by Friday.
Before After
──────────── ────────────
Screenshot 3.09.11 PM.png 📁 Screenshots
invoice_final_v2.pdf 📁 Documents
demo (13s).mp4 📁 Videos
project-backup.zip 📁 Archives
main.rs 📁 Code
untitled-2.xyz 📁 Inbox ← anything it's unsure about
- Watches your Desktop and files each loose item into a type folder —
Documents,Images,Screenshots,Videos,Audio,Archives,Code,Folders, andInboxfor anything it can't confidently place. - Tells you in real time. Every move fires a macOS notification — "📥 Filed to Documents — invoice.pdf" — and clicking it opens Finder with that file highlighted.
- Runs itself forever. Installed as a
launchdagent, so it starts automatically at every login and needs zero babysitting. - Optionally uses on-device AI (macOS 26+, Apple Intelligence) to suggest homes for whatever lands in
Inbox— privately, on your Mac, and only as suggestions.
- It never deletes anything. DeskTidy only moves files. If a name already exists in the destination, it keeps both (adds a timestamp) — it never overwrites.
- It waits before touching a file (15s by default), so it never grabs something mid-download or mid-save.
- The AI never moves anything. The optional smart pass writes suggestions to a file. You decide.
- Nothing leaves your Mac. No servers, no telemetry, no network. The AI is Apple's on-device model.
- Every move is logged, so you can always see (and undo) exactly what happened.
- macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later — what CI tests. Earlier versions may work but are unverified.
- Apple's command-line developer tools (the installer tells you how if they're missing:
xcode-select --install). - Optional:
terminal-notifier(brew install terminal-notifier) for clickable banners. Without it you still get banners, just not clickable. - Optional: macOS 26+ for the on-device AI triage. On older macOS it's simply skipped.
brew install anubisquantumcipher/tap/desktidy
desktidy setupsetup starts the background service and walks you through the one-time Full Disk Access grant (a background helper can't touch your Desktop until you allow it once). That's it.
Useful commands:
desktidy status # service, permissions, recent moves
desktidy sort-now # run one pass right now
desktidy log # follow the move log
desktidy teardown # stop + remove the service (files untouched)Want it to organize a different folder instead of the Desktop?
desktidy setup --target ~/Downloadsgit clone https://github.com/AnubisQuantumCipher/desktidy.git
cd desktidy
./install.sh # same flags: --target ~/Downloadsdesktidy teardown && brew uninstall desktidy # Homebrew install
./uninstall.sh # source installRemoves the tool completely. Your folders and every file it ever sorted stay exactly where they are — it only removes DeskTidy itself.
file lands on Desktop
│
▼
launchd WatchPaths fires ──► desktidy-sort ──► waits 15s (settle) ──► moves to the right folder ──► logs the move
│
desktidy-notify tails the log ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────►─┘
│
▼
clickable macOS notification: "📥 Filed to Documents — invoice.pdf"
desktidy-sort— a small, signed Swift binary. Pure, deterministic rules (extension + a couple of name heuristics). A single-instance lock keeps the watcher and any manual run from colliding.desktidy-notify.sh— a tiny shell watcher that turns each logged move into a notification.- One movement authority, receipts for everything (v1.2.0): DeskTidy
refuses to sort a folder that another automation already watches (no
double-sorting, fails closed on ambiguity), and every move is recorded in a
durable, hash-chained receipt ledger with crash recovery — see
docs/R0_AUTHORITY_AND_RECEIPTS.md.
desktidy-sort --historyshows recent receipts;--verify-ledgerchecks the chain. - Two
launchdagents in~/Library/LaunchAgents/(com.desktidy.sort,com.desktidy.notify) — this is what makes it survive reboots. They start at login, watch the folder, and relaunch themselves if needed.
| Folder | Gets |
|---|---|
| Screenshots | files named Screenshot … / Screen Shot … |
| Images | png, jpg, heic, gif, webp, svg, … |
| Videos | mp4, mov, mkv, Screen Recording …, … |
| Audio | mp3, wav, m4a, flac, … |
| Documents | pdf, docx, txt, md, pages, xlsx, csv, epub, … |
| Code | js, ts, py, rs, go, swift, json, yaml, sh, … |
| Archives | zip, tar, gz, dmg, pkg, … |
| Folders | any folder you drop on the Desktop |
| Inbox | anything it can't confidently place (never a wrong guess) |
Everything you'd want to change lives in src/Config.swift: folder names, which extensions go where, the settle delay, and the AI toggle. Edit it, then re-run ./install.sh to rebuild and reload.
static let folderDocuments = "Documents" // rename freely
static let settleSeconds: TimeInterval = 15 // how long to wait before moving
static let codeExts: Set<String> = ["js","ts","py","rs", …] // move extensions between setsIf you're on macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence, DeskTidy uses Apple's on-device foundation model to read the name and a short local preview of files sitting in Inbox, then writes Inbox/SMART_TRIAGE_SUGGESTIONS.md recommending where each belongs.
It is suggestions only — the model never moves, renames, uploads, or deletes anything, and file contents are treated as untrusted (it won't follow instructions hidden inside a file). On older macOS this feature is compiled out entirely; the deterministic sorter is unaffected.
Does it survive a reboot? Yes. The agents auto-start at every login (they can't run at the lock screen — they need your session — but they're live within seconds of you logging in).
Why does it need Full Disk Access? macOS protects the Desktop folder. A background helper can't read or move files there until you allow it once in System Settings. DeskTidy asks for nothing else, and makes no network connections.
Will it move files I'm actively working on? No — it waits until a file has been untouched for 15 seconds (configurable), and it skips in-progress downloads (.crdownload, .part, .tmp, …).
Can I organize my Downloads / another folder instead? Yes: ./install.sh --target ~/Downloads.
What if two files have the same name? Both are kept. The second gets a (dup …) timestamp suffix. Nothing is ever overwritten.
If you run agents like Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor on this Mac, they'll sometimes write files to the Desktop — and ~20 seconds later DeskTidy files them, which can confuse an agent that goes back to look ("where did report.md go?"). Fix: make your agents DeskTidy-aware.
-
Claude Code: install the ready-made skill from
skills/desktidy-awareness/:mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/desktidy-awareness curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AnubisQuantumCipher/desktidy/main/skills/desktidy-awareness/SKILL.md \ -o ~/.claude/skills/desktidy-awareness/SKILL.md
-
Codex / Cursor / anything that reads AGENTS.md: paste the block from
skills/AGENTS-SNIPPET.mdinto your global agents file.
The short version agents need to know: files at the watched root get filed
after ~20s; the move log (~/Library/Application Support/DeskTidy/desktidy.log)
records every final path; subfolders (including Inbox/) are never re-sorted;
desktidy teardown / desktidy setup pauses and resumes for Desktop-heavy work.
- Menu-bar app with pause/resume and a live activity feed.
- Per-folder rules and user-defined categories via a JSON config (no rebuild).
- Optional "smart move" mode that acts on high-confidence AI suggestions (opt-in).
- Homebrew tap for one-line install.
Issues and PRs welcome. The whole thing is ~650 lines of Swift plus three small shell scripts — easy to read and hack on. Run desktidy-sort --self-test after changes.
MIT — see LICENSE.
DeskTidy runs entirely on your Mac. It has no servers, no analytics, and no network access of any kind.