Our Mac will have a lot more space and so will our mind. Imagine, if while writing an email to a client you could just go into the right folder to access the previous invoice? Wouldn’t it be better if the trash emptied itself after a week? How would it be if you could just arrange your virtual desktop by clicking a button ‘Tidy Folder?’ What if we could automatically delete some specific downloads older than a year? On the other hand, an untidy desktop makes it difficult to search for a document that you created only yesterday. Hazel is a great app for automating file management in OS X.Aclean computer can help you finish your work on time as you can quickly navigate amongst your notes and files to find what you need. You can assign certain folders for Hazel to watch and then perform specific actions if the files within meet set criteria. Hazel can automatically put videos in the Movies folder and audio tracks in the Music folder.

It can also, as you’ll see, do a whole lot more. In this tutorial I’ll demonstrate how to create the ultimate workflow for keeping a Mac clutter free-or at the very least, keeping the clutter organised-using Hazel and a dedicated Inbox. It’s really easy to gather digital clutter on a Mac.

Time Machine makes it possible to keep files for years even as you chance computers and install new versions of OS X. There are two folders particularly prone to getting cluttered with digital data: the Downloads folder and the Desktop. Unless you make an effort to delete every. dmg you download, things rapidly start to overflow. Similarly, Jacob’s written about why you shouldn’t store files on the Desktop despite how convenient it is. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to deal with both these issues. The key to this workflow is a new Inbox folder you’ll be creating. Any file on the Desktop or in Downloads will be moved to a subfolder in the Inbox by Hazel. This straight away starts to keep things organised. Once a file is in the Inbox folder, it will stay there for a week or two if everything stayed in the Inbox forever, you’d be back to a cluttered Mac after a couple of months. Instead, Hazel moves any files that have been in the Inbox too long to somewhere more relevant: videos go to the Movies folder and old. With these rules in place, it’s almost impossible for the Desktop, Downloads or Inbox folders to get cluttered. My colleague Paula has written a great article that covers the basics of using Hazel. She goes into a lot of detail on setting up rules. Some of the examples she uses will even be part of this workflow. If you’re not already familiar with Hazel you should read her article before continuing. You also need an up-to-date copy of Hazel 3 you can download one from the developers website. There’s a free 14-day trial and after that it costs $29. Hazel works as promised so if this workflow is something you’re interested in I recommend just buying it upfront.

It will take an hour or two to set up and tweak if you just want to try Hazel there are far easier ways to do it. You can download a copy of my Hazel rules and import them. If you want to follow my exact setup you can use them as is, or, if your needs are different, tweak them to suit. The core of this workflow is a new Inbox folder with a number of subfolders.

Folder tidy vs hazel