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Tip: Keep Your Mac’s Downloads Folder Clean

June 1, 2022 by fairerplatform
Tip To Keep Your Mac’s Downloads Folder Clean

Movies and software. Software and movies. The Downloads folder on my Mac is usually chock full of them. Whereas I can’t tolerate a messy Desktop and clear it off several times a day, trashing unneeded files and putting away the rest, the Downloads folder is another issue altogether — out of sight, out of mind.

Of my Mac’s 250GB hard drive, only about about half has been used — plenty of space for a scratch disk and swap files. Music, movies, documents, etc. are all stored on external disks and backed up — drives are cheap and back up software easy, automagical.

Nevertheless, like the Desktop, the Downloads folder (~/Downloads) requires regular manual sorting of the digital wheat and chaff. If I let it get out of hand, that necessary 100-plus gigabytes of free hard drive space can disappear rather quickly and it’s happened before — invariably near the end of a big iMovie or Photoshop project as the deadline bears down on me.

Here are a couple tips for keeping on top of the problem:

• Finish what you started — Big presentation, product review, etc. completed? Clean up now before the remains become part of the scenery

• When BitTorrent’s finished seeding, take care of the file right now — configure your client to play a sound and/or display a notification

— After adding Music, audiobook and movie files to iTunes, clean up the mess right now

• Don’t use Downloads for long-term storage — everything belongs somewhere and none of it belongs in the Downloads folder

• Set aside a specific time at the beginning or end of day to sort, sift and clean the Downloads folder

Have a better way? Created a super nifty AppleScript to do the job for you? Share your story and a link in the comments below…

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