I hate messy Downloads folders. You know the feeling:
report.pdf
report(1).pdf
report(2).pdf
screenshot.png
screenshot(1).png
screenshot(2).png
video_final.mp4
video_final_FINAL.mp4
notes.docx
notes_copy.docx
notes_copy_FINAL(1).docx
At some point you just stop caring and let it rot.
Cron jobs felt overkill — why poll every minute just to watch an empty folder? So I built haul. Drop a file in a watched folder, it moves it to the right place. That's it.
The trick — zero CPU when idle
haul uses inotify, a filesystem event API built into the Linux kernel. Instead of running a loop, it just waits for the kernel to say "hey, a file arrived" — sorts it — then exits. systemd restarts it immediately for the next file.
No polling. No persistent process. Nothing running between events.
file lands
↓
kernel fires inotify
↓
haul wakes up
↓
file sorted → ~/Data/subfolder
↓
haul exits
↓
systemd restarts it
↓
(waiting for next file...)
Install
sudo apt install inotify-tools -y
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kushal1o1/haul/main/install.sh | bash
Usage
haul install set up and start
haul sweep sort files already sitting in watched folders
haul start/stop manage the service
haul logs tail the live log
haul uninstall remove haul (your ~/Data/ is untouched)
What it sorts
| Folder | Extensions |
|---|---|
| PDFs | .pdf |
| Images |
.jpg .jpeg .png .gif .webp .svg
|
| Videos |
.mp4 .mkv .avi .mov .webm
|
| Audio |
.mp3 .flac .wav .ogg .m4a
|
| Code |
.py .js .ts .sh .json .yaml .sql
|
| Zips |
.zip .tar.gz .rar .7z .deb
|
| WordFiles |
.doc .docx .odt
|
| Excel |
.xlsx .xls .csv
|
| Others | everything else |
Screenshots are detected by source folder, not filename — set SCREENSHOTS to wherever your tool saves them.
Fully configurable
Everything — watched folders, destination, subfolder names, extension rules — is just bash variables at the top of ~/.local/bin/haul. Open it in any editor and change what you want.
DATA="$HOME/Files" # change destination
DOWNLOADS="$HOME/Desktop" # change watched folder
After editing: haul restart
Duplicate handling
- Same file arrives again → deleted silently
- Same name, different content → renamed with a timestamp before moving
Logs
[2024-01-15 14:30:22] MOVED report.pdf → ~/Data/PDFs/
[2024-01-15 14:31:45] DUPLICATE (identical) skipped: report.pdf
[2024-01-15 14:32:10] CONFLICT renamed: notes_20240115_143210.md
Requirements: Linux with systemd, bash 4+, inotify-tools. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04.
Source: github.com/kushal1o1/haul — MIT licensed.
If you've been living with a messy Downloads folder, give haul sweep a try first — it sorts whatever's already there without touching the daemon.