Tidy - Your Mac tidies itself: screenshots, installers, Downloads
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Tidy lives in your menu bar and handles three chores you keep doing by hand.
It archives new Desktop screenshots, renaming them from their content with on-device OCR — "Screenshot 14.22.10.png" becomes "invoice-march.png".
It ejects the .dmg you mounted and trashes the installer.
It sorts new Downloads by type, with rules you write in plain English. Apple Intelligence builds them on-device, so nothing leaves your Mac.
Only touches new files. Never deletes. $9 once, no subscription.
Replies
@etiennegarcia Thanks Etienne! That was the original itch — the day I started building Tidy I counted 14 forgotten .dmg files in my Downloads. And the fun part: it doesn't discriminate. Seconds after I installed it for the first time, it ejected and trashed its own installer. It practices what it preaches :)
Love how it only touches new files and never deletes, that alone makes me trust it more than most utilities. One idea: let me exclude specific folders from the Downloads sorter, since I keep a WIP folder inside Downloads where client assets live that I don't want shuffled into Images or Documents at midnight.
@aleynal0ij Thank you — that trust is exactly what I optimized for.
And good news about your WIP folder: it's already safe, by design. The sorter only looks at loose files sitting at the top level of Downloads — it never looks inside folders, and it never moves folders (the only exception is .app bundles, which macOS treats as single files). So your client assets are invisible to Tidy, at midnight and always.
That said, an explicit exclude list is a fair idea for power users — adding it to the 1.1 list. Thanks for the thoughtful suggestion!
Auto-organizing Downloads and screenshots is one of those "small thing, huge relief" features. Does it let you set custom rules per file type, or is the sorting logic fixed?
@ark_y_k Fully custom! Sorting is rule-based: each rule is a set of extensions → a destination folder, and you can edit everything — add your own rules, change the folders, set a minimum age (e.g. "only move installers older than 1 day"), group into monthly subfolders, or toggle any rule off.
It ships with sensible defaults (Documents, Images, Archives, Installers…) so it works with zero setup, but nothing is fixed.
And the part I'm most proud of: you can just type a rule in plain English — "PDF invoices to Finance" — and Apple Intelligence builds it on-device, inferring the extensions, folder and icon. No syntax to learn, and nothing leaves your Mac.
@sebadiaz That's great — being able to set a minimum age per rule is exactly the kind of control I'd want. Do you have any default rule templates for people who don't want to set everything up manually, or is it fully build-your-own from the start?
@ark_y_k Zero setup needed — Tidy ships with 7 rules already on and working: Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Images, Web pages, Archives, and Installers (that one comes with the 1-day minimum age, so fresh downloads stay put while yesterday's installers get filed).
On top of that there's a one-tap template gallery for extras — Audio, Videos, Design files (PSD/Sketch/Figma), eBooks, Code — plus a blank rule if you want full control, and the plain-English AI option if you'd rather just describe it.
So the honest answer: most people never need to configure anything. The controls are there for the day you want them.
@sebadiaz 7 rules covering that much out of the box is impressive for zero setup. Sounds like the "minimum age" logic is doing a lot of the smart filtering behind the scenes — nice touch.
Hi! Does it leave a log of some sort? Meaning, in the case of "hey, where is my file?" can the user know quickly what happened to it?
@luis_parker Yes! The menu bar panel has a live Activity log — every action is recorded with the filename and timestamp: "invoice.pdf → Documents", "Screenshot archived and renamed: …", "Installer to Trash: …". So "where did it go?" is answered at a glance for recent actions, and there's a one-click Undo right next to it.
And as a deeper safety net: since Tidy never deletes, a file is always in one of three predictable places — its rule's folder inside Downloads, the screenshots archive (one click to open from the panel), or the Trash. Never gone.
A full searchable history is a fair ask though — adding it to the 1.1 list. Thanks!
@sebadiaz Awesome, thank you!
Love that it only touches new files and never deletes, took that worry off my mind right away. The plain English rules for Downloads feel like the kind of thing I actually want to set up once and forget about.
@bekirtrkneux6c Thank you! "Set up once and forget" is literally the design goal — there's a section on the site with almost exactly that title. My success metric is honestly a bit backwards: the less you open Tidy, the better it's working. The panel is there for the day you're curious about what it did — the other 364 days, it should just quietly earn its $9.
the "never deletes" line buried at the end is such a thoughtful trust signal, made me actually relax while reading. and the plain english rules for downloads feel like the right level of magic, on device and inspectable instead of some opaque sorter.
@ferdibatszcb Thank you — and you've spotted something real: you're the second person today to say the "never deletes" part is what made them relax. It might deserve a promotion from footnote to headline.
And "the right level of magic" is exactly what I was going for: the AI writes the rule, but the rule is a thing you can see — extensions, folder, minimum age, all visible and editable before it ever runs. Magic that shows its work, not a black box that moves your files on vibes.
the screenshots renamed via on-device OCR is such a thoughtful touch. honestly didn't know i needed it until i saw it. love that it only touches new files too, feels safe to leave running.
@berilyldrtfy2q Thank you! That feature came straight from my own pain: squinting at a wall of "Screenshot 14.22.10.png" thumbnails trying to find one bank receipt. Naming them by what they actually say felt obvious in hindsight — the best tweaks usually do.
And "feels safe to leave running" honestly made my day — that was the entire design brief in five words.
Would love a "dry run" mode before it actually moves files - maybe a weekly notification showing what it would have done so I can catch any rule tweaks before things get shuffled around.
@zge6ydq That's a genuinely good idea — added to the 1.1 list (this thread is writing my roadmap for me, and I love it).
Today the model is the reverse: act → show → undo. Every move lands in the Activity log with filename and destination, and one click reverses it. Since nothing is ever deleted, a "wrong" move is a 10-second fix rather than a lost file.
But I get the appeal of seeing the plan before anything moves at all — especially in week one while you're tuning rules. A dry-run toggle fits Tidy's philosophy perfectly: trust through transparency. Thanks for this one.
Love the "never deletes" promise and the plain-English rules idea. One thought: a quick "undo" or staging area where I can preview what Tidy is about to do before it actually renames or moves things would make me way more comfortable letting it run unsupervised on my Downloads folder.
@azadtekeli Good news on half of that: Undo already exists! Every action lands in the Activity log, and there's a one-click Undo right in the panel — it even survives app restarts. And since Tidy never deletes, Undo always has something to restore from.
The preview/staging half: you're the second person in this thread to ask for exactly that, so a dry-run mode officially went on the 1.1 list an hour ago. Clearly the right instinct — if the tool shows its plan, you don't have to trust it blindly. That's the direction Tidy is heading.