Automate Your Messy Downloads Folder with Python (Beginner Script) 📂

⚡ What You Will Build

The Problem: Your Downloads folder is a mess of 1,000 random files.
The Fix: A Python script that instantly sorts them into folders like “Images,” “PDFs,” and “Installers.”
The Skills: You will learn the os and shutil libraries.

Open your Downloads folder right now. Be honest—how bad is it?

If you are like most people, it’s a graveyard of old screenshots, PDF menus, and random setup.exe files. Today, we are going to write a “janitor script” that cleans it up for you in less than 1 second.

The Logic: How It Works 🧠

The script follows a simple 3-step logic:

Look at every file in the folder.
Check the extension (e.g., is it a .jpg or a .pdf?).
Move it to the correct home (e.g., move .jpg to the “Images” folder).

The Code 💻

Open VS Code and create a new file named cleaner.py. Copy and paste this code:

import os
import shutil

# 1. Define the folder to clean (Change this to your actual path!)
# Windows example: r"C:\Users\YourName\Downloads"
# Mac example: "/Users/YourName/Downloads"
DOWNLOADS_PATH = r"/Users/YourName/Downloads"

# 2. Define the rules (Extension -> Folder Name)
EXTENSION_MAP = {
    ".jpg": "Images",
    ".png": "Images",
    ".jpeg": "Images",
    ".gif": "Images",
    ".pdf": "Documents",
    ".docx": "Documents",
    ".txt": "Documents",
    ".zip": "Archives",
    ".rar": "Archives",
    ".exe": "Software",
    ".dmg": "Software",
    ".mp4": "Videos"
}

def clean_folder():
    # Loop through every file in the folder
    for filename in os.listdir(DOWNLOADS_PATH):
        file_path = os.path.join(DOWNLOADS_PATH, filename)

        # Skip if it's a folder (we only want to move files)
        if os.path.isdir(file_path):
            continue

        # Get the file extension (e.g., ".jpg")
        _, extension = os.path.splitext(filename)
        extension = extension.lower()

        # Check if we have a rule for this extension
        if extension in EXTENSION_MAP:
            folder_name = EXTENSION_MAP[extension]
            folder_path = os.path.join(DOWNLOADS_PATH, folder_name)

            # Create the folder if it doesn't exist
            os.makedirs(folder_path, exist_ok=True)

            # Move the file
            shutil.move(file_path, os.path.join(folder_path, filename))
            print(f"Moved {filename} -> {folder_name}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    clean_folder()
    print("Cleanup Complete! 🧹")

How to Customize It ⚙️

1. Set Your Path

The most important line is DOWNLOADS_PATH. You need to put the actual path to your computer’s folder.

Windows Tip: Use an r before the quote (e.g., r"C:\Users...") to fix backslash issues.
Mac/Linux Tip: Use forward slashes (e.g., "/Users/...").

2. Add More Rules

Do you work with Excel files? Add this to the EXTENSION_MAP:

".xlsx": "Spreadsheets",
".csv": "Spreadsheets",

Why `os` and `shutil`?

You will see these two libraries in almost every Python automation script.

os (Operating System): Lets Python “talk” to your computer. It handles paths, folders, and file names.
shutil (Shell Utilities): This is the “heavy lifter.” It handles moving, copying, and deleting files.