The downloads folder is not a folder, it is a queue nobody drains

Open your downloads folder and sort by date, oldest first. There is a decent chance the first file is from a laptop you no longer own.

Downloads is the most reliably chaotic folder on any computer, and unlike the desktop, nobody even pretends to keep it tidy. It is worth understanding what it actually is before trying to fix it.

It was designed as a queue

A download is a file in transit. The folder exists so the browser has somewhere to put things while you decide what to do with them. The implied workflow is: download, use, move or delete.

Nobody does the third step. So a queue with no drain becomes a permanent archive that happens to be sorted by the least useful attribute available, which is when you happened to click a link.

What is in there, roughly

In most downloads folders the contents divide into four kinds of thing, in descending order of quantity:

• Installers and disk images. Almost always safe to delete. You can download them again, and the version you have is out of date anyway.
• Things you opened once. A PDF someone sent, a spreadsheet you checked, a ticket you already used. Mostly deletable, occasionally not.
• Things you downloaded to keep and never moved. Contracts, statements, invoices, certificates, photos someone shared. This is the valuable part and it is maybe five per cent of the folder.
• Duplicates of all of the above, called document (1).pdf through document (7).pdf.

The two minute version

If you do nothing else: sort by kind, select every .dmg, .exe, .pkg and .iso, and delete them. On a folder that has run for years this often removes more than half the volume and carries essentially no risk.

Then sort by size and look at the top twenty. Large files are either important or they are a video you no longer need, and either way it is worth thirty seconds to know which.

The five per cent is the actual problem

Deleting installers is easy because you can tell what they are from the extension. The valuable five per cent is hard for the opposite reason: it is called document (3).pdf and you cannot tell what it is without opening it.

This is why downloads folders never get properly cleaned. The first pass is quick and satisfying, then you hit two hundred ambiguous PDFs and stop.

The way through it is to not open them one at a time. Drop the whole folder into Stash and every file gets read, named for what is actually in it, and sorted. Then you are looking at a list that says Lease agreement, Bank statement February, Insurance certificate rather than document (3), document (4), document (5), and deciding what to keep takes a minute instead of an afternoon.

Duplicates get handled on the way in too. Identical files are stacked under one entry rather than filed seven times, which on a downloads folder is a meaningful share of what is there.

Stopping it refilling

Point your browser at a folder that is not Downloads, and let it fill up instead. This sounds like moving the problem, and it is, but it separates old sediment from new arrivals, which is what makes a weekly clear-out possible.

Or set a reminder to empty it every Friday, on the understanding that emptying means deleting most of it and moving the rest somewhere that will file it. The folder is a queue. Queues are meant to be drained.

Keep reading

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