What other file manager cleaning procedures or organizational schemes do you maintain?
Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#2I never use the downloads folder. I always download to where I want the thing to go.
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#3I do not use the downloads folder. I download it where I want them to be.
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#4All of my downloads folders are huge unwieldy messes. I clean them out on the occasion that I want to feel conscientious. Otherwise I can't be bothered.
Now, in decades past, when I had but one or two hundred megabytes to mess with, I would assiduously comb through nearly every folder by hand to keep the drive clean and neat. Now, with thousands of gigabytes I'm supremely lazy.
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#5I used to have my desktop as a downloads and temporary files area. I had a cron job set up which moved all files unmodified in a couple days to a separate temp archive folder. I had another cron job which deleted all files older than 6 months from that archive folder. (By older, I mean comparing the last modified date).
The act of moving a file away from the desktop or that archive folder meant I wanted to keep it.
Bonus points: my desktop tended to be clean despite me creating lots of random temporary files on it.
At some point, while switching between OSes, I stopped porting that 2 scripts. I should probably write them again...
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#6Windows has this built in and even when enabled I've never once seen it actually clean anything up. Source: got some files from 2020.
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#7Funny but one time I was in a long flight without any TV/Internet and decided to spend my time cleaning out the downloads folder. Took me about 3 hours. That almost 2 years ago and here I am with my downloads folder again with a few hundred files. Dang it.
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#8I work under the assumption that anything in the downloads folder is up for deletion at any point in time. I periodically just delete everything in there without so much as a glance
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#9My downloads folder is /tmp. If it's needed, I'll move the file to an appropriate location in Documents.
Re: Ask HN: Do you clean out your downloads folder after each download?
#10Absolutely not. Not entirely sure why though. I just checked it yesterday, and there’s stuff since my last reset about a year ago. Really, if you’re a disorganized weirdo like me lmao it helps you remember where some files are. The other day I was looking for some video transformation software I used months ago but couldn’t find it. I tried everything. Last resort? I checked my downloads from 5 months ago and found it. Video Proc. But don’t even get me started on my desktop or folders named desktop files because that’s another story.