Sortly

Smart Windows File Organizer

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Sortly automatically organizes files into categories like Documents, Images, Videos, Audio, Code, and more — with a modern native Qt desktop app and a full-featured CLI. It supports real-time folder monitoring, custom rules, smart media detection, duplicate grouping, undo, scheduling, and Windows autostart.

Screenshots

Dashboard	Monitoring	Custom Rules

Activity Log	Notifications

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Features

• One-click organization — scan any folder and preview exactly what will move before committing
• Real-time monitoring — watch folders and auto-organize new files as they arrive
• Windows autostart — when monitoring is enabled, Sortly registers itself to start with Windows
• Smart media detection — separates web series (S01E01 patterns) from movies automatically
• Duplicate detection — SHA-256 hash grouping, isolates copies into a Duplicates folder
• Custom rules — map filename substrings to any category, evaluated before extension matching
• Smart presets — apply curated setting bundles for Developer, Student, Content Creator, or Office
• Conflict policies — per-category control: rename (default), skip, or replace on filename collision
• Protect recent files — skip files modified within a configurable time window
• Undo — full session history with per-file undo preview before restoring anything
• Scheduling — configure auto-organize to run every N minutes
• Config import / export — share or back up your full settings as a single JSON file
• CLI parity — every feature available from both the GUI and the command line

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Quick Start

Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit)
• Python 3.11+

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/your-username/sortly.git
cd sortly
pip install .

Install GUI dependencies when you want to run the desktop app:

pip install ".[gui]"

Install CLI as a package (recommended)

# From GitHub
pip install "git+https://github.com/your-username/sortly.git"

# Then run
sortly --help

Use pipx for isolated global CLI installs:

pipx install "git+https://github.com/your-username/sortly.git"
sortly --help

Run the desktop app

python sortly_gui_qt.py

Run the CLI

# Installed command
sortly --help

# Module mode (no PATH setup needed)
python -m sortly --help

# Legacy wrapper (optional)
python sortly_cli.py --help

Build installers

python build_executables.py

Produces dist/Sortly/Sortly.exe (GUI), dist/SortlyPortable.exe (portable GUI), and dist/SortlySetup-1.0.0.exe (Windows installer, requires Inno Setup 6).

To also build the optional standalone CLI executable:

python build_executables.py --with-cli-exe

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CLI Quick Reference

# Organize a folder (dry-run preview)
sortly organize "C:\Users\You\Downloads" --dry-run --details

# Organize immediately without prompts
sortly organize "C:\Users\You\Downloads" --auto

# Monitor folders in real-time (Ctrl+C to stop)
sortly monitor "C:\Users\You\Downloads" --save

# Undo the last session
sortly undo --yes

# Add a custom rule
sortly rules add invoice Documents

# Apply a smart preset
sortly presets apply Developer

# Show all settings
sortly settings show

# Export config
sortly config export my-settings.json

See DOCS.md for complete CLI reference and detailed guides.

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Categories

Category	Extensions (examples)
Images	.jpg .png .gif .svg .webp .heic .raw .psd
Videos	.mp4 .mkv .avi .mov .webm .ts
Movies	Detected from Videos via smart media detection
WebSeries	Detected from Videos via S01E01 pattern matching
Audio	.mp3 .flac .wav .aac .ogg .m4a
Documents	.pdf .docx .xlsx .pptx .txt .csv .md
Archives	.zip .rar .7z .tar.gz .iso
Code	.py .js .ts .html .css .java .go .rs
Executables	.exe .msi .apk .jar
Fonts	.ttf .otf .woff .woff2
Duplicates	Files with identical SHA-256 hash
Others	Everything else

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Package Layout

sortly/
|- assets/
|  |- screenshots/          screenshots used in README
|  |- sortly_logos/         ICO, PNG, SVG logo assets
|- sortly/                  Python package
|  |- __init__.py
|  |- core.py               Engine: organizer, settings, history, monitoring
|  |- gui_qt.py             PySide6 Qt desktop application
|  |- cli.py                Full-featured CLI
|  |- movie_detector.py     PyMediaInfo-based movie/series classifier
|  |- duplicate_detector.py SHA-256 duplicate finder
|  |- smart_presets.py      Preset bundles (Developer, Student, etc.)
|- installer/
|  |- sortly.iss            Inno Setup 6 installer script
|- .github/
|  |- workflows/
|     |- release.yml        GitHub Actions: build + release on version tags
|- sortly_gui_qt.py         GUI entrypoint
|- sortly_cli.py            Legacy CLI wrapper entrypoint
|- build_executables.py     PyInstaller + Inno Setup build script
|- requirements.txt
|- README.md
|- DOCS.md                  Full documentation and CLI reference

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Data / Config Paths

Sortly stores all user data in %USERPROFILE%\.sortly\:

File	Purpose
settings.json	All app settings
history.json	Move history for undo
activity.log	Timestamped activity log

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GitHub Release (CI)

Push a version tag to trigger an automatic build and release:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

The GitHub Actions workflow builds SortlySetup-x.y.z.exe and SortlyPortable.exe, builds Python package artifacts (.whl + .tar.gz), and creates a GitHub Release with those files.

The CLI is primarily distributed as a Python package (sortly command). Each tagged release includes package artifacts alongside GUI binaries.

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License

MIT — Copyright © 2026 Arsh Sisodiya