Automatically Sort Downloaded items in Mac into Separate Folders

In Mac, every time you download a file, it will be automatically stored in the Downloads folder. Be it a song, a video file, Microsoft Word file, PDF file, etc. After quite some times, you might find your Downloads folder is very cluttered with all files that you have downloaded from the internet.Would it be nice if the items inside the Downloads folder are automatically sorted into separate folders according to their types? Unfortunately such function does not exist yet in current Mac OS X system. But, you could do just that by using the powerful Automator application in Mac. Here’s how:

 

Step 1: Create the designated folders in the Downloads folder

Create desired folders in the Downloads folder

First of all, you need to create the designated folders where you want the downloaded files to be placed into, for example create a folder called PDF to store all downloaded PDF documents, create a folder named Photos for downloaded pictures such as JPEG files, PNG files, etc.

Step 2: Open Automator and select Folder Action

Create Folder Action in Automator

In Automator, click on following items:Under Library on the left hand side, click on Files & Folders.Then choose the Downloads folder as the designated folder where the Folder Action is to be implemented.Click and drag the Filter Finder Items command into the space on right hand side.Filter the file type of interest, for example music, photos, PDF, etc. as shown in the following figures

Click and drag the Move Finder Items command underneath the first command.Select the designated folder where the files should be moved to.Finally, save the Folder Action.Creating folder action in Automator (moving all downloaded music files such as .mp3, .m4a into the designated ‘mp3s’ folder in the Downloads folder.

For other file types, you just have to repeat the same steps as previously described and create filter for the desired file type, as follows:

Moving downloaded images into ‘photos’ folder in the Downloads folder.Moving downloaded video files into ‘vids’ folder in the Downloads folder.Moving downloaded PDF files into ‘pdfs’ folder in the Downloads folder.

For Microsoft Office files such as Words, Excel and Powerpoint, you could either create separate folders for each file type or your could put them together in one folder like what I did. To do this, you have to create a filter like the following figure. You have to choose the command ‘Any of the following are true’ and ‘File extension contains ……… (put the extension of the desired file type such as .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx and so on)’.

Moving all documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files into ‘docs’ folder in the Downloads folder.After finish creating all folder actions, why don’t you give it a try. Try download any mp3 file or a PDF file and just wait and see. Automator will do its job and the file that you have just downloaded will be automatically sorted into the designated folder that you have created. Enjoy!