File Organizer for macOS

Sorts files in a folder into subfolders by type — images, videos, documents, code files, archives, and so on. Runs as a plain shell script with no dependencies.

What's in here

File	Purpose
FileOrganizer.command	The core script. Sorts files into categorized subfolders. Can be run manually, via cron, or through the scheduler.
CleanupScheduler.command	GUI setup tool. Lets you pick a folder and schedule, then writes a config file and installs the cron job for you.
FileOrganizerOneTime.command	One-shot organizer. Run it, pick a folder, done. No config, no scheduling.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/your-username/file-organizer.git
cd file-organizer

That's it. No build step, no dependencies. The scripts use bash and osascript, both of which ship with macOS.

macOS will probably block it the first time

Apple's Gatekeeper flags scripts downloaded from the internet. When you double-click any of the .command files, you'll likely see something like:

"FileOrganizer.command" cannot be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.

To fix this:

1. Open System Settings (or System Preferences)
2. Go to Privacy & Security
3. Scroll down — you'll see a message about the blocked script
4. Click Open Anyway
5. Confirm when prompted

You only need to do this once per file. After that, it'll run normally.

Alternatively, you can clear the quarantine flag from the terminal:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine FileOrganizer.command
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine CleanupScheduler.command
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine FileOrganizerOneTime.command

Using FileOrganizerOneTime.command

For a one-off cleanup. Double-click it, pick a folder from the Finder dialog, and it sorts everything in that folder into subfolders by type. No setup, no config files.

Using CleanupScheduler.command

For recurring automatic cleanup. Double-click it and follow the dialogs:

1. Pick the folder you want to keep organized
2. Choose how often it should run (hourly, every 6 hours, every 12 hours, daily, or weekly)
3. If daily or weekly, pick a time and day

It writes a config file to ~/.fileorganizer.conf and installs a cron job. Run it again anytime to update the schedule or remove it entirely.

Using FileOrganizer.command directly

It accepts a directory in three ways, checked in this order:

# Environment variable
ORGANIZE_DIR=~/Downloads ./FileOrganizer.command

# Command-line argument
./FileOrganizer.command ~/Downloads

# Config file (reads DIRECTORY from ~/.fileorganizer.conf)
./FileOrganizer.command

If none of those are set, it opens a folder picker dialog.

Config file

The scheduler creates this automatically, but you can also write it by hand:

DIRECTORY=/Users/you/Downloads
SILENT=true
LOG_FILE=/Users/you/.fileorganizer.log

• DIRECTORY — the folder to organize
• SILENT — set to true to skip all dialogs and log results to a file instead. Useful for cron jobs.
• LOG_FILE — where to write the log when silent mode is on

What gets sorted where

Folder	Extensions
Images	jpg, jpeg, png, gif, bmp, svg, webp, tiff, heic, psd, raw, cr2, and more
Videos	mp4, mov, mkv, avi, webm, flv, wmv, and more
Audio	mp3, wav, flac, aac, ogg, m4a, and more
Documents	pdf, docx, xlsx, pptx, epub, rtf, pages, and more
Text Files	txt, md, csv, log
Data Files	json, xml, yaml, toml, ini, env
Code Files	py, js, ts, html, css, swift, go, rust, ruby, php, sh, and more
Archives	zip, rar, 7z, tar, gz, bz2, xz
Disk Images	dmg, iso, img
3D Models	stl, obj, fbx, blend, gltf, glb
Fonts	ttf, otf, woff, woff2
Executables	exe, msi, pkg, deb, apk
Torrents	torrent
Databases	db, sqlite, mdb
Other	anything not recognized

Notes

• Only top-level files in the target folder are moved. Subfolders are left alone.
• Hidden files (starting with .) are skipped.
• If a file with the same name already exists in the destination folder, a number is appended (file_1.txt, file_2.txt, etc.) — nothing gets overwritten.
• The cron job uses minute 17 past the hour to avoid the :00 stampede on shared systems.