

Startup Idea : Clean my Download folder  - AaronO

I guess it's quite strange that in 2013 wh have all this evolved and super "fancy" technology but yet our download folders are a mess.<p>It burns me from the inside, each time I must jump into my Download/ folder and I realize how much chaos lies in this tiny but infinitely deep folder ...<p>Please tidy our Download folders, I need it, you need it, we all need it :)
======
ivan_ah
I have a file called ''cleanup.sh'' which I run whenever my Desktop folder
gets too crowded (my browser saves stuff to the desktop).

    
    
        #!/bin/bash
        MYHOME=$HOME
        MYDESKTOP=$HOME/Desktop
        
        
        echo "         _                              "
        echo "        | |                             "
        echo "    ___ | | ___  __ _ _ __  _   _ _ __  "
        echo "   / __|| |/ _ \/ _  | '_ \| | | | '_ \ "
        echo "  | (__ | |  __/ (_| | | | | |_| | |_) |"
        echo "   \___||_|\___|\__,_|_| |_|\__,_| .__/ "
        echo "                                | |    "
        echo "                                |_|    v0.1 "
        echo "  "
        
        cd $MYDESKTOP
        DIRS="Papers Code Images Music Videos Links Archives Webpages Progs"
        for dir in $DIRS; do
            mkdir $dir
        done
        
        # make the final dest dir...
        mkdir "desktop `date "+%Y-%m-%d"` "
        
        
        for file in $MYDESKTOP/*; do
            #echo "found file $file ... "
            case $file in
            *.pdf | *.PDF | *.doc | *.ps | *.ppt | *.textClipping) 
                echo "Moving $file to Papers/"
                mv "$file" Papers/
            ;;
            *.py | *.pyc | *.php | *.php4 | *.php5 | *.pl | *.java | *.c | *.js | *.m | *.csv | *.tex | *.log | *.cpp ) 
                echo "Moving $file to Code/"
                mv "$file" Code/
            ;;
            *.gif | *.png | *.PNG | *.jpg | *.JPG | *.jpeg | *.tiff | *.bmp | *.gcx | *.svg ) 
                echo "moving $file to to Images/"
                mv "$file" Images/
            ;;
            *.aiff | *.sd2 | *.wav | *.mp3 | *.ogg | *.pls ) 
                echo "moving $file to to Music/"
                mv "$file" Music/
            ;;
            *.wmv | *.mov | *.WMV | *.flv | *.avi | *.mp4 | *.mpg | *.m4v ) 
                echo "moving $file to to Videos/"
                mv "$file" Videos/
            ;;
            *.exe | *.EXE) 
                echo "moving $file to to Progs/"
                mv "$file" Progs/
            ;;
            *.webloc | *.lnk | *.desktop) 
                echo "Moving $file to Links..."
                mv "$file" Links/
            ;;
            *.zip | *.gz | *.tgz | *.tar | *.dmg | *.iso | *.iso.md5sum | *.deb | *.pkg | *.bz2 | *.rar | *.mpkg | *.torrent ) 
                echo "Moving $file to Archives... "
                mv "$file" Archives/
            ;;
            *.html | *.htm | *.webarchive) 
                echo "Moving $file to Webpages..."
                mv "$file" Webpages/
                mv "${file%.*} Files" "Webpages/${file%.*} Files"
                mv "${file%.*}_files" "Webpages/${file%.*}_files"
            ;;
            *) echo "Sorry, I don't know what kind of file $file is!"
            esac
        done
        
        #delete empty dirs
        for dir in $DIRS; do
            rmdir $dir      # will fail if files were put into it
        done
    
    
    

I then put all these subfolders into a folder titled `desktop YYYY-MM-DD
(something descriptive)` and my life gets better (for a couple of days).

It doesn't clean things up, but at least it gets the files out of the way. I
often use the labels to find stuff. Eg.

    
    
       desktop 2012-11-20 (Berlin)
       desktop 2012-12-07 (cleanup after book launch rush)
       desktop 2012-12-26 (ka-lite, web dev stuff, pre-NoBS launch)
       desktop 2013-03-01 (day at the Spundge offices)
    

Hope it helps.

------
moyajaya
Just sort your downloads by type or whatever suits your needs and remove the
unnecessary files that you no longer need... How difficult can that be?

~~~
AaronO
Don't worry, I'm not stupid. I know that's a possibility, but that itself is
actually an issue (you have to do it manually).

I certainly don't think a big startup could come out of this, but there's
definitely an issue with our Download folders.

One of the issue with the Download folder is that most of us use it as a
temporary folder, by that I meen, we download a file, open it once and then
leave it to rot their for eternity.

The app could simply do things like detecting duplicates (a lot of non tech
savy people download the same file multiple times) (just fingerprinting each
file and then removing all versions except one), removing files which haven't
be accessed for a certain amount of time (unused files), and also moving files
to different folders depending on their type or source ...

I think it's just a very simple issue but something that is universally
painful for every computer user tech savy or not.

~~~
moyajaya
This can be a little annoying in the scenario you described, but I personally
think organizing files is an easy task and relying on an application to do
just that makes this a bigger issue than it really is.

I periodically reorganize my files, mainly my desktop and downloads folder.
This helps me take this habit to the real world and keep my life organized as
well.

I'd welcome an app that automates the process just for the sake of choice but
I think I'll keep doing this particular task manually.

~~~
AaronO
I don't think that this is really a major issue, I just find it silly that in
2013 we're still dealing with the burden of a messy download folder when at
the same time we're building brilliant technology such as self driving cars,
etc ...

------
klinquist
In OS X, I use Hazel to do just this.

<http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php>

~~~
AaronO
Thanks for the link. Hazel definitely seems cool.

But I do think that there is a room for improvement. For example : instead of
making you setup custom rules, it could have an "automagic" mode where it
analyzes the behavior of it's current users and learns which rules suit which
kind of people.

I imagine it would ask you a few questions upon install (age, etc ...) to get
a grasp of which kind of user you are. And then thanks to the data from it's
users it could apply some machine learning to work which rules would suit you
best.

But Hazel is still a lot better than the defacto solution (which is just
leaving your Download folder in a mess).

~~~
klinquist
Learning would be great, but really, we are pretty static creatures. I spent
10 minutes setting up rules.... I don't know, 4 years ago? I've imported those
new rules into every new machine I've had since.

~~~
AaronO
Yep I agree, it's definitely not the most interesting/useful problem to solve
(I hope everyone got that my post was mostly ironic).

But I do find it interesting that we've "over engineered" many things on other
futile topics, and yet our download folders are still stuck in the messe
1990's (but even then, users where pushed to tidy their Downloads for space
reasons).

Anyway, I suggest we let this topic rest.

I've still got some work to do on the new version of my startup's product (and
in case you ask, no it isn't anything related to the above)

------
orangethirty
How much would you pay for this?

~~~
AaronO
To be honest, I don't think it's something that could be sold for a recurring
fee but more a one time purchase.

I personally would pay 10$ for an app which would do the job for me in a smart
and evolved manner.

I'm not sure I'm really the target user, since I really use my computer as a
dumb terminal to access web/cloud services, but I know a lot of friends and
family who struggle managing their downloads effectively.

They forget that they can actually access what they've already downloaded, so
instead they co and download again (and waist 15mn searching for the link
online).

So I do believe that such a tool would improve the entire computer user
experience for elderly and non savy users.

(To gain mass adoption I think such a solution should be bundled with the OS)

------
keefe
mkdir legacy; find ~/Downloads -mtime +3 -exec mv {} legacy \;

~~~
AznHisoka
or just "rm -rf *" to save yourself the hard drive space.

