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File Organizer

Clean up any messy folder in seconds: sort, rename and de-duplicate files, with a preview before anything moves and one-click undo after.

CI Latest release Downloads License: MIT Platforms

File Organizer previewing a messy Downloads folder sorted by type

⬇ Download for Windows, macOS or Linux

Free · Open source · Works offline · No account, no telemetry

Why File Organizer?

  • Nothing happens by surprise. Every batch shows a source → target preview first, and Undo last batch puts every file back.
  • Your files stay on your machine. The app never connects to the internet or uploads anything.
  • One app, every OS. Native builds for Windows, macOS and Linux with no runtime to install.
  • Built for real clutter. Downloads folders, photo dumps, old project drives: organize, bulk-rename and remove duplicates across many folders at once.

Features

Organize

  • By type — group files into Images/, Documents/, Audio/, Video/, Archives/, Code/, Executables/, Fonts/, Other/
  • By size — bucket into Tiny (<1MB), Small (1–10MB), Medium (10–100MB), Large (100MB–1GB), Huge (≥1GB)
  • By date — group by year or year-month, using either modified or created timestamps

Rename

  • Predefined styles: snake_case, kebab-case, PascalCase, camelCase, UPPERCASE, lowercase, date-prefix, sequential-prefix
  • Custom token patterns: {date:yyyy-MM-dd}_{seq:003}_{kebab}{ext}
  • Tokens: {name}, {ext}, {date:format}, {created:format}, {seq[:padding]}, {snake}, {kebab}, {pascal}, {camel}, {upper}, {lower}, {size}

Duplicate finder

  • Cross-folder duplicate detection — finds copies across every selected folder, not just one
  • Size pre-filter + SHA-256 hashing (skips the slow path when no two files share size)
  • Per-group selection: keep one, quarantine the rest
  • Quarantine moves duplicates to _Duplicates_<timestamp>/ inside each file's containing root, so moves stay on the same volume and remain undoable

Multi-folder

  • Add multiple folders and apply the same plan across all of them in one preview/apply
  • Drag-drop folders from your file manager directly into the app
  • Per-folder watchers, per-folder quarantine, cross-folder deduplication

Safety

  • Preview-then-apply for every batch operation
  • Undo last batch — every apply is journaled to %LOCALAPPDATA%/FileOrganizer/history/ (or the platform equivalent). Undo restores files to their original locations and cleans up empty folders
  • Collision handling — (1), (2), ... suffixes for genuinely conflicting targets; case-only renames on case-insensitive file systems are handled correctly

Workflow

  • Presets — save (folders + tab + mode + settings + rename pattern) as a named profile. One-click load later
  • Watch folder mode — monitor folders with FileSystemWatcher and auto-organize new arrivals. Includes file-lock retry (waits up to 6 seconds for downloads to finish writing)
  • Windows shell integration — installs an "Organize with File Organizer" entry into the Explorer right-click menu (folders and folder backgrounds). User-level only (HKCU), no admin required
  • Command-line argument support — FileOrganizer.exe "C:\Downloads" launches the app with the folder pre-added

Download

Ready-to-run builds for every version are on the Releases page. No .NET installation needed.

Platform File
Windows x64 FileOrganizer-vX.Y.Z-win-x64.zip: unzip and run FileOrganizer.exe
Linux x64 FileOrganizer-vX.Y.Z-linux-x64.tar.gz: extract and run ./FileOrganizer
macOS Apple Silicon FileOrganizer-vX.Y.Z-osx-arm64.tar.gz
macOS Intel FileOrganizer-vX.Y.Z-osx-x64.tar.gz

On macOS the app isn't notarized, so Gatekeeper blocks the first launch. Run xattr -d com.apple.quarantine FileOrganizer in the extracted folder once, then start it normally.

Requirements (building from source)

  • .NET 10 SDK or later
  • Windows 10/11, modern Linux distributions, or macOS 11+

Getting started

git clone https://github.com/moustafarhat/FileOrganizer.git
cd FileOrganizer
dotnet run

To build a release executable:

dotnet publish FileOrganizer.csproj -c Release -r win-x64    # Windows x64
dotnet publish FileOrganizer.csproj -c Release -r linux-x64  # Linux x64
dotnet publish FileOrganizer.csproj -c Release -r osx-arm64  # Apple Silicon

Releases are automatic: bump <Version> in FileOrganizer.csproj and push to main. The Release workflow runs the smoke tests, builds all four platforms and publishes them as release v<Version>. Pushes that don't change the version don't create a release.

Usage

Organizing a folder

  1. Click Add... or drag a folder into the drop zone
  2. Pick a tab — Organize or Rename
  3. Choose your grouping mode or rename style
  4. Click Preview — the planned operations appear as a source → target list
  5. Review and click Apply
  6. If anything's wrong, click Undo last batch

Finding duplicates

  1. Add one or more folders
  2. Switch to the Duplicates tab
  3. Click Scan for duplicates — each group is shown with size, count, and recoverable bytes
  4. By default the first file in each group is kept; check or uncheck rows to change the selection
  5. Click Move selected to quarantine — confirms, then moves selected duplicates to _Duplicates_<timestamp>/ inside each root
  6. Use Undo last batch to restore everything if needed

Watching a folder

  1. Add folders and switch to the Organize tab
  2. Configure your grouping mode
  3. Click Watch — the app monitors all selected folders and auto-organizes new files as they arrive
  4. The green ● Watching badge confirms the watcher is live; click Watch again to stop

Installing shell integration (Windows)

  1. Click Shell integration… in the toolbar
  2. Click Install — adds an "Organize with File Organizer" entry to the right-click menu for folders
  3. Right-click any folder in Explorer to launch the app with that folder pre-loaded
  4. Click Uninstall in the same dialog to remove it

Presets

  1. Configure folders + settings the way you want them
  2. Type a name in the preset textbox and click Save
  3. Later, pick the preset from the dropdown — all folders and settings are restored
  4. Click Delete to remove a saved preset

Architecture

FileOrganizer/
├── Models/                        DTOs and converters
│   ├── OrganizeMode.cs            mode + date enums
│   ├── PlannedOperation.cs        single move/rename plan
│   ├── OperationLog.cs            persisted apply log for undo
│   ├── DuplicateGroup.cs          one duplicate set
│   ├── Preset.cs                  saved profile
│   ├── RenamePattern.cs           rename style + options
│   └── Converters.cs              Avalonia value converters
├── Services/                      Pure business logic (no UI)
│   ├── Categorizer.cs             type/size/date bucketing
│   ├── Renamer.cs                 token-based rename engine
│   ├── OperationPlanner.cs        builds plans (organize / rename / single-file)
│   ├── OperationExecutor.cs       applies plans and undoes logs
│   ├── OperationLogStore.cs       JSON persistence + pruning
│   ├── DuplicateFinder.cs         SHA-256 dedup with size pre-filter
│   ├── PresetStore.cs             JSON-per-preset persistence
│   ├── FolderWatcher.cs           FileSystemWatcher with debounced queue
│   └── ShellIntegrationService.cs HKCU registry integration (Windows)
├── ViewModels/                    MVVM bindings (CommunityToolkit.Mvvm)
│   ├── MainWindowViewModel.cs
│   ├── DuplicateGroupViewModel.cs
│   └── ViewModelBase.cs
└── Views/                         Avalonia XAML
    ├── MainWindow.axaml
    └── MainWindow.axaml.cs        folder picker, drag-drop, dialogs

The Services layer is pure C# with no Avalonia dependencies — that's what lets the smoke-test project link the same files and validate the logic headlessly.

Development

Build

dotnet build FileOrganizer.csproj

Run the GUI

dotnet run

# Or launch with a folder preloaded (also works via shell integration):
dotnet run -- "C:\Downloads"

Run smoke tests

The smoke-test project covers the entire service layer headlessly — multi-folder organize, undo, cross-folder dedup, preset round-trips, and a live registry round-trip on Windows.

dotnet run --project FileOrganizer.SmokeTest

Each assertion prints PASS or FAIL. Exit code is non-zero if anything fails.

Data locations

Type Path
Apply logs %LOCALAPPDATA%/FileOrganizer/history/ (Windows), ~/.local/share/FileOrganizer/history/ (Linux), ~/Library/Application Support/FileOrganizer/history/ (macOS)
Presets Same parent, presets/ subfolder

Logs are pruned to the most recent 20.

Roadmap

Ideas that aren't built yet, in rough priority order:

  • Filter rules — only files matching a glob, older/newer than N days, larger/smaller than N MB, ignore patterns (.git/, node_modules/, .DS_Store)
  • EXIF / ID3 metadata in rename tokens — {exif:date}, {exif:camera}, {id3:artist}_{id3:album}_{id3:title}
  • Conflict policy per run — Skip / Overwrite / Keep both / Ask (instead of the current always-keep-both)
  • Scheduled presets — run a preset on a cron-style schedule via Task Scheduler / launchd / systemd
  • macOS Services + Linux file-manager integration — extend shell integration beyond Windows
  • Empty folder cleanup after organize

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, from bug reports to new features. Read CONTRIBUTING.md to get started, and see the Roadmap for ideas. If File Organizer saves you time, a ⭐ helps other people find it.

License

MIT © Moustafa Farhat

About

Clean up messy folders: sort, bulk-rename and de-duplicate files with preview and one-click undo. Free, offline, Windows/macOS/Linux.

Topics

avaloniabulk-renamecross-platformcsharpdesktop-appdotnetduplicate-finderfile-managementfile-organizerproductivity

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