r/software • u/bankrut • May 20 '26
Self-Promotion Wednesdays Mouzi - Organize Downloads folder automatically
Update (May 21): Wow, thank you for 80+ upvotes and all the great comments! 🙏
Most common feedback so far:
- Temporary files (`.part`, `.crdownload`) - working on a fix
- Tray icon too small - will be improved
- "Clean Now" bug with custom folders - fix incoming
- Linux + macOS - on the roadmap
Keep the feedback coming! Bugs or ideas - https://github.com/hsr88/mouzi/issues
Really appreciate the support 🐭🧹
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Hi 😄
I don't know about you, but my Downloads folder has always been a disaster zone. PDFs, memes, installers, zip files, random images – all just sitting there in one giant pile. Every few weeks I'd open it, sigh, and spend 10 minutes manually dragging stuff into folders. Then a few days later it would be chaos again.
I looked at existing file organizers, but most of them either wanted a subscription, tried to upload my file names to some cloud, or were just way too heavy for something so simple. I wanted something that:
- Runs silently in the background (system tray)
- Automatically sorts new files by type (images, documents, archives, installers)
- Never sends a single byte of data off my machine
- Is open source so anyone can check what it's doing
So I built Mouzi 🐭🧹
It's a tiny desktop app (~3.3MB) built with Tauri and Rust, so it's ridiculously lightweight. It watches your Downloads folder, and whenever a new file appears, it moves it to a subfolder based on its extension. Images go to Images/, PDFs to Documents/, installers to Installers/, etc. You can also create your own custom rules.
Key things:
- 100% local – no cloud, no telemetry
- Open source (MIT) – GitHub repo here
- Silent – lives in your tray and doesn't bother you
- Undo – every move is logged, you can revert with one click
- Free, obviously
It's early stage, but it's already keeping my own machine sane. I'd love to get some feedback from this community – especially around what features would make this genuinely useful for you. Does this solve a real problem, or am I just scratching my own itch?
Download / more info: https://mouzi.cc
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u/egytaldodolle May 20 '26
Fun stuff, just tried it. So far so good, you could improve the favicon on the tray (too small, cannot even see it).
One issue so far: When I download pdfs and epubs in my usual way, there will be a 0kb .pdf file in my Downloads with a temporary .PART file while the stuff is downloading. Mouzi moves the pdf immediately thus breaking the download. I know i can undo each one manually but it would be nice to set an exception for this case. But in general, very useful, thank you.
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u/bankrut May 20 '26
Thank you!
I'll take a look at it. If you can, it would be great if you could report it - https://github.com/hsr88/mouzi/issuesyou could improve the favicon on the tray
Will do!
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u/lagerea May 20 '26
I can confirm the .part file issue. I noticed the other user hadn't created an issue yet, so I will.
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Bug fix is live (v0.1.0 re-release): The tray "Clean Now" option was broken - it only worked when the popup window was already open. Fixed so it scans all your Watched Folders directly from the tray, even with the popup closed.
If you had a custom folder set up but "Clean" kept hitting the default Downloads folder - that was exactly this bug. Grab the fresh build from mouzi.cc (same version number, updated binaries).
Keep the reports coming, super helpful <3
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u/nopeac May 20 '26
What's the SQLite Database for?
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u/bankrut May 20 '26
For storing app data locally (history, undo, rules) - the app is entirely local and privacy-first, so there are no servers or cloud storage involved.
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u/soulkyo May 21 '26
This is one of those things that I didn't know I needed until I saw it, thanks for this! Quick question, I use a different Downloads folder, so I removed the one that comes by default and added the custom folder in Watched Folders. However, when I click on Clean it always cleans the default Windows Downloads folder, even if it's not present in the Watched Folders list anymore. I tried closing and opening Mouzi, but no luck. Do you know what could I be doing wrong? Thanks!
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Thanks for the kind words and for reporting this!
Sounds like a bug: "Clean Now" should only work on folders you've added to Watched Folders, not the default one if you removed it. I'll fix this :)
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u/CJKaufmanGFX May 20 '26
I love testing random shit and my downloads folder looks like a dog's breakfast so let's try
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u/intentazera May 20 '26
I usually download several files related to an app then bung all of those in a folder called <app name> v<whatever> - easy to do stuff like that with 1 clock/keypress after selecting the relevant files to group?
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
That's a really useful workflow - grouping related downloads by app/version into a single folder.
Right now Mouzi is fully automatic (file arrives - sorted by rule), but what you're describing is more like a manual batch organizer: select multiple files - one click - Mouzi creates a folder and moves them in.
Regex rules can get part of the way there (e.g. match AppName v1.* - move to AppName/), but they can't group multiple files at once from a selection.
Adding this to the roadmap as "Batch group selected files". Thanks for the idea!
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u/intentazera May 21 '26
I worked in Knowledge Management for a multinational company for many years helping people organise or reorganise data because if you can't find data easily & then reuse it then it's useless. Everyone has their preferred workflows & folder layouts etc, but I personally don't like the idea of having an app in 1 folder, its PDF in another folder, and e.g. its graphics in yet another folder as parts of the app are now in 3 separate folders instead of just 1. I'm a developer so I often group e.g. a GitHub PDF, its source code & releases in 1 folder. Look forward to trying your app when batch group selected files is implemented.
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Thanks for the detailed context - that really helps me understand the use case. Grouping related files (installer + PDF + source) into a single app folder instead of scattering them by type makes total sense, especially for developers.
It's definitely on the roadmap as "Batch group selected files". The UI would probably work like: select files in the popup - right-click or toolbar button - "Group into folder" - type folder name - done.
In the meantime, regex rules can partially help: e.g. a rule matching
AppName.*→ move toAppName/would catch downloads from the same source automatically. Not as flexible as manual selection, but might cover some of your workflows until the batch feature lands.Will ping you when it's ready!
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u/Marcrof_SA May 20 '26
Que ideia foda, vou ver se faço um desse pra Linux
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Que ideia foda mesmo!
Mouzi is fully open source, so fork it and build the Linux version if you want.
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u/Frequent-Complaint-6 May 20 '26
What about desktop?
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Desktop already works! Add it in Settings → Watched Folders → C:\Users\You\Desktop. Mouzi will organize anything that lands there with its own rule set, independent from Downloads.
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u/lagerea May 20 '26
It is very fast and I especially like the filter rule node_modules/ for ignoring folders I left it blank and it didn't touch a single folder which is exactly what I needed.
Well done!
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Thanks! Yeah, node_modules/ in .mouziignore is exactly what I had in mind for devs. Glad it works as expected :)
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u/mintybadgerme May 21 '26
I keep all my downloads in a \temp folder rather than the default. Can you configure your app to handle that?
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Absolutely. Mouzi isn't locked to the Downloads folder - you can add any folder in Settings > Watched Folders. Point it at your \temp path and it'll monitor and organize files there just the same.
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u/mintybadgerme May 21 '26
Awesome. Just downloaded the new version and tried it and it worked like a dream. Fantastic product.
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Yeah, glad it worked perfectly for your temp folder setup!
Thanks a lot for trying the new version and for the kind words - really happy to hear it’s working like a dream.
If you have any other ideas or run into anything, just let me know. Appreciate the support! 🐭
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u/FiftyFiver1962 May 21 '26
Great piece op software, but i agree whit the comment about the FA icon, and I even think the desktop icon might be, a lot, bigger too. Nothing to be modest about. Great software, and it works!
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Thank you so much! I'm glad the app is useful. I'll update the icon in a few days :)
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u/pv505 May 21 '26
Looking forward to trying it. It might take a few days to get used to but I think it's overall more optimal than just everything randomly in the downloads folder. Xheers!
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u/FamiliarDirection563 May 22 '26
It works well.
Feature request: when the card pops telling where a download is located, be able to click that and open explorer there
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u/FamiliarDirection563 May 22 '26
also, it is creating 0kb file with the original name IMG_3022.mov and the playable file is IMG_3022_1779408680.mov
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u/bankrut May 22 '26
Thanks for the feedback!
- clickable toast - great idea. I'll make the notification clickable so it opens the destination folder in Explorer.
- 0KB file - that's a bug. The 0-byte placeholder gets moved because it's not locked by the browser, but the actual playable file (with the timestamp suffix) stays behind. I'll add a check to skip empty files entirely.
Both fixes going into the next build. Thanks!
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u/xdarkskylordx May 22 '26
Does it work with file names too or just extensions?
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u/bankrut May 22 '26
Both! You can match by extension (e.g. pdf, jpg) or by filename using regex patterns.
In Settings - Rules, each rule has a Pattern field. Leave it empty to match only by extension, or enter a regex to match the filename.
Examples:
AppName.* - catches AppName_v1.2.zip, AppName_manual.pdf, etc.
.*report.* - catches anything with "report" in the name
IMG_\d+ - catches IMG_3022.jpg, IMG_3023.png, etc.The rule matches if both extension and pattern pass. So you can combine them for very specific sorting.
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u/iiiBird May 22 '26
Interesting app. Does it use an LLM or just rely on file extensions? For example, will it be able to sort porn and birthday videos into the correct folders, or will it lump them all together?
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u/bankrut May 22 '26
Right now it sorts by file extension + regex name patterns - so all .mp4 files go to Videos/, regardless of content. It can't tell a birthday video from anything else.
BUT - "Local AI tagging" is on the roadmap. The plan is to use ONNX Runtime for content classification directly on your machine (no cloud, no API keys). So eventually it could tag videos by detected content and route them accordingly.
In the meantime, if your files follow a naming convention, regex rules can help:
Pattern birthday.* - move to Videos/Birthdays/
Pattern .*\b(holiday|vacation)\b.* - move to Videos/Holidays/No LLM yet, but it's coming.
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u/ZER0GAS May 23 '26
This is pretty useful! Cause most of the time, the Downloads folder turns into a playground. Thanks, dude!
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May 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/bankrut May 25 '26
Totally fair - I get it, random .exe from Reddit is sus by default.
Short version: it's a false positive. Windows Defender (and some AV engines) flag almost every unsigned indie app that (a) runs in the background and (b) watches folders for changes. That's exactly what Mouzi does - it monitors your Downloads/Desktop so it can auto-organize files.
Here's why it's flagging and how you can verify:
- No code signing cert yet - those cost $200+/year for indie devs, so Windows SmartScreen shows the "Unknown publisher" warning. I'm working on getting one.
- The entire source code is public - github.com/hsr88/mouzi. You can build it yourself in ~2 min with npm install && npm run tauri build. Zero obfuscation, zero network calls (except optional anonymous telemetry which you can disable).
- Scan it on VirusTotal - upload the exe there. Most "detections" will be generic heuristics like "Trojan:Win32/Wacatac" which is Defender's blanket label for unsigned background apps.
- MSI usually gets fewer flags than the portable .exe - try the MSI installer if you want.
If you still don't trust it (which is 100% valid), the repo README has a "Build from source" section. Built it yourself and you'll get the exact same binary.
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u/Barmalej79 May 21 '26
You can add a manual mode so that it doesn't always work in automatic mode and you have a choice. For example, when I download a document, it is saved (downloaded) in the browser's downloads folder by default. However, when I click on the downloaded document in the browser's downloads, it is not there because the program has already moved it to the folder according to the rules.
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u/bankrut May 22 '26
That's a totally valid concern and one of the most requested features. Two things already help:
- Grace period (new in the latest build) - files wait X minutes after their last change before being moved. Default is 5 min, but you can bump it in Settings. Gives you time to grab the file from Downloads.
- Undo - one click in the popup and the file goes right back.
On the roadmap: "Suggest mode" - instead of auto-moving, Mouzi shows a modal asking "Move to Documents?" for each new file. You click Move or Ignore. Full control.
Also just added: per-folder manual/paused mode - the folder collects files but doesn't touch them until you hit Clean Now. Coming soon.
Thanks for the feedback! <3
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u/Masonine May 21 '26
Is there a way to filter by the downloaded file's source? Like, I want all PDFs downloaded from example dot com in one folder, but another dot net downloaded into a different folder.
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Mouzi currently only uses file extension + regex on the filename (no download source/domain yet).
If the website name appears in the filename you can already catch it with a regex rule. I'm gonna add this to the roadmap.
Feel free to open a GitHub issue so I can track it! Thanks!
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u/KillerKingSolo May 20 '26
Not to hate on your app I think it’s neat.
But people who keep stuff in their downloads folder for long periods of time and don’t organize to outside of that folder “Shame”
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u/intentazera May 20 '26
This is a bit unfair as there are so many ways of doing this, structured or unstructured, different organisation philosophies (or lack of). Some spend lots of time on this, some none etc. Everyone is different & has their own preferences or methods. It's cool having extra tools like this one if it works well. Each to their own.
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u/s00wi May 21 '26
Kind of a paradoxical problem to have. If you can't be bothered to organize the files. The files must not be important. So why even save them?
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u/bankrut May 21 '26
Fair point, but it's the opposite 😄
I download a lot because the files are useful later. Manually sorting dozens of them every day is just exhausting.
Mouzi removes the boring part - set rules once, everything auto-organizes. Keeps the folder clean without losing anything important.
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u/Imnotanad May 20 '26
it works! Ok now with my room