CleanDL: automatically organise your downloads folder

Downloads folders have a habit of becoming digital dumping grounds. Invoices sit beside screenshots, installers, archives and photos until finding anything becomes a chore. CleanDL is a file organisation tool that automatically sends those downloads to the folders where they belong.

CleanDL runs on the computer or NAS where your files arrive. You define your sorting rules in one place, connect each computer and let the small command-line app do the repetitive work. It is available for macOS, Windows and Linux.

How CleanDL organises downloads

A file extension can provide a useful default: PDFs can go to Documents, images to Pictures and ZIP files to Archives. CleanDL can also match filenames when a file type alone is not specific enough. An invoice can go to a finance folder while another PDF follows the general document rule.

Rules can add year and month folders automatically, making it easy to keep growing collections in order. They can also ignore files that should remain where they are or delete known unwanted files. Specific filename rules take priority, followed by the default destination for that file type.

Preview every change before moving files

Automating file moves should not require a leap of faith. CleanDL includes a dry-run mode that reports what it would do without changing the filesystem. You can inspect every proposed destination, adjust your rules and enable real moves only when the result looks right.

There is also a built-in demo mode. Running cleandl --demo uses example rules, requires no account and always remains a trial run. It is a quick way to see how automatic download sorting works without risking your files.

Built for regular, automatic runs

CleanDL can be launched manually or run quietly as a scheduled task. That makes it suitable for a personal computer, a downloads server or an always-on NAS. It preserves original file access and modification times, and it avoids overwriting a file when the destination already contains one with the same name.

Your rules are saved locally after a successful connection. If the CleanDL server is temporarily unavailable, preview runs can continue with the cached settings. A run that could move or delete files asks for confirmation first, keeping an important safety check in the process.

One set of rules across your computers

The CleanDL website provides a central place to manage folders, filename patterns and behavior for different operating systems. Each computer connects with its own key and receives the current settings, so you do not have to maintain a separate configuration everywhere.

This is especially useful when a laptop and a home server should organise files in the same way but store them under different base paths. The rules remain consistent while each system uses the appropriate destination.

Get started with CleanDL

If you want to spend less time tidying downloads and more time using them, visit the CleanDL landing page to learn how it works, create an account and download the app.