Organising files

The ten-minute tidy

Updated 2026-07-31 · 3 min read

Entropy wins against any one-off cleanup. A small routine beats a big purge.

The list

1. Downloads triage (4 min). Sort by Date Added. Everything from the week: delete, file into its project, or leave only if genuinely pending. Installers whose apps are installed: delete on sight.

2. Desktop sweep (2 min). The Desktop is a workbench, not storage. Anything finished moves to its home; anything stale dies. If Stacks is hiding chaos, ⌃⌘0 to face it.

3. Screenshot cull (1 min). Search Screenshot, sort by date, Quick Look through the week's crop with Space, delete the 90% that were disposable.

4. Big-file check (1 min). A saved search for files over 1 GB modified this week catches the renders, recordings and disk images while you still remember what they are.

5. Trash (30 sec). Glance and empty — or let the 30-day auto-empty handle it (Finder → Settings → Advanced).

6. The week's stragglers (90 sec). Files modified this week sitting outside your project folders:

find ~ -maxdepth 3 -type f -mtime -7 -not -path "*/Library/*" 2>/dev/null

Anything homeless gets a home while its purpose is still remembered.

Why weekly

Seven days of accumulation is one screenful — every decision is fresh and takes a second. A year of accumulation is an afternoon of archaeology where half the files are mysteries. Same total work; utterly different experience.

Make it automatic-ish

Saved searches (or Smart Folders) for each step — recent downloads, big recent files, this week's screenshots — turn the routine into six clicks. The routine you can do on autopilot is the one that survives.

Common questions

How do I keep my Downloads folder under control?

A weekly triage sorted by Date Added — delete, file, or consciously keep. Auto-cleanup settings help with the leftovers.

Is it safe to delete old installers weekly?

Yes — .dmg and .pkg files are redundant once the app is installed and re-downloadable besides.