organize.readthedocs.io

organize is designed to be safe for file management because it supports simulating every rule before any file is touched, and it offers safe moving, renaming, and copying with conflict resolution options. It runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and it is free and open-source software. If you want to automate sorting, renaming, or cleaning up files but are worried about irreversible mistakes, the simulation step is the main feature that makes it reasonable to try on real folders.

What makes organize safe to use

The documentation highlights several safety-related features:

• Simulation before execution. Everything can be simulated before touching your files, so you can preview what a rule would do and catch mistakes first.
• Safe moving, renaming, and copying. These operations include conflict resolution options, so you can control what happens when a target name already exists instead of silently overwriting.
• Conflict resolution options. Rather than assuming a default behavior, organize lets you configure how conflicts are handled.
• Open source. The tool is free and open-source software, so its behavior can be inspected rather than taken on trust.

A practical workflow that uses these safeguards:

1. Write or edit a rule.
2. Run it in simulation mode to see the proposed changes.
3. Review the output for anything unexpected.
4. Only then run it for real.

This matters most for tasks like removing incomplete downloads, clearing unused files from ~/Desktop, or deleting duplicates, where a wrong filter could match more than you intended.

Which platforms organize supports

organize works on:

• macOS
• Windows
• Linux

The only stated requirement is Python 3.9 or newer. Installation is done via pip, and the package name is organize-tool:

pip install -U organize-tool

The same command updates to the newest version. After installing, run organize --help to confirm the installation succeeded.

What organize can be used for

The documentation lists common uses:

• Sorting and tagging pictures into folder structures based on EXIF data
• Sorting and renaming PDF invoices based on file content
• Removing incomplete downloads from ~/Downloads
• Cleaning up ~/Desktop from unused files
• Freeing disk space by removing duplicates
• Automating various business processes

Supporting features include fast duplicate file detection, EXIF tag extraction, categorization via text extracted from PDF, DOCX, and other formats, a template engine, and inline Python and shell commands as filters and actions.

A first rule to test safety yourself

After installing, run organize new and then organize edit to open the configuration. A minimal rule looks like this:

rules:
  - name: "Find PDFs"
    locations:
      - ~/Downloads
    subfolders: true
    filters:
      - extension: pdf
    actions:
      - echo: "Found PDF!"

This rule only echoes a message, so it is a safe way to confirm that your locations and filters match what you expect before adding actions that move or rename files. If you have trouble editing the configuration, the documentation mentions organize show --reveal as a way to locate it.

Choosing whether to use it

organize is a reasonable choice if you want a command-line, open-source alternative to tools like Hazel (macOS) or File Juggler (Windows), and you value being able to preview changes before they happen. It is less suited if you need a graphical interface, since it is a command-line tool, or if you cannot install Python 3.9+ and pip on the machine. For important files, start with simulation and echo-only actions, verify the matches, and add destructive actions only once the rule behaves as intended.

An open-source UI element library is a collection of individual, ready-made interface pieces—buttons, cards, inputs, toggles, loaders—that you copy into your own project and adapt. A UI framework, by contrast, is a structured system of components, conventions, and often a theming layer that governs how your whole interface is built. The practical difference: an element library gives you a snippet; a framework gives you a way of working. If you need a polished button in ten minutes, reach for the element library. If you're building a 40-screen product with a team, you probably want the framework.

What "open-source UI element library" actually means

The term gets used loosely, so it helps to separate the parts:

• Open-source: the code is publicly available, and the license tells you what you may do with it—copy, modify, redistribute, or use commercially.
• UI element: a single, self-contained piece of interface, usually small enough to read in one sitting. A button with hover states, a pricing card, a search field.
• Library: a browsable, searchable collection of those elements, typically contributed by many different people.

On a site like Uiverse, elements are shared by a community and written in plain CSS or Tailwind. You find one you like, copy the markup and styles, paste them into your project, and adjust colors, spacing, and text to fit. There's no package to install and no build step required—which is exactly the appeal, and also the source of most of the confusion.

Element library vs. UI framework: the core differences

The table isn't a verdict. It's a map of trade-offs. Element libraries win on speed and freedom; frameworks win on consistency and maintenance.

Licensing and attribution: what to check before you paste

This is where people get into trouble, and it's worth slowing down for.

1. Find the license. Every element or collection should state one. Common open-source licenses include MIT, Apache-2.0, and BSD. Some projects use copyleft licenses like GPL, which can impose obligations if you redistribute your code.
2. Understand what the license permits. MIT and Apache-2.0 are permissive: you can typically use the code in commercial and closed-source projects. Copyleft licenses may require you to release derivative source under the same terms.
3. Check attribution requirements. Permissive licenses usually require you to keep the copyright notice and license text somewhere in your project. That's a real obligation, not a formality.
4. Look for per-element terms. On community sites, the site's overall terms and the individual contributor's stated wishes may differ. If a contributor asks for credit, honor it.
5. When in doubt, ask or avoid. If a snippet has no license at all, you don't have clear permission to reuse it. Treat "no license" as "not open source," even if the code is publicly visible.

This article is general information, not legal advice. For commercial products with real exposure, have someone qualified review the licenses you're relying on.

How to use a community element in your project: a practical workflow

Here's a repeatable process that avoids most of the usual mess.

1. Start from a real need, not a browsing session

Decide what you need first—"a compact primary button with a loading state"—then search. Browsing aimlessly produces a pile of pretty snippets that don't fit together.

2. Copy the smallest version that works

Take the markup and the styles. Strip anything you don't need: demo wrappers, extra animations, decorative layers. Less code means fewer surprises.

3. Convert it to your conventions

If your project uses design tokens or CSS variables, replace hard-coded values:

/* Before: hard-coded */
.button { background: #4f46e5; border-radius: 8px; }

/* After: token-based */
.button { background: var(--color-primary); border-radius: var(--radius-md); }

This one step is what keeps a copied element from looking like a foreign object in your UI.

4. Check accessibility before you ship

Community elements vary widely here. Verify at minimum:

• Keyboard focus is visible and the element is reachable by Tab.
• Color contrast meets WCAG AA (4.5:1 for normal text).
• Interactive elements use semantic HTML (<button>, not a clickable <div>).
• Form inputs have associated labels.
• Motion respects prefers-reduced-motion.

5. Test in context

Paste it into a real page with real content. Long labels, small screens, and dark mode break more copied elements than anything else.

6. Note where it came from

Keep a short comment or an internal credits file: source, license, date. Future you—and your legal reviewer—will be grateful.

Where element libraries genuinely shine

• Prototypes and demos: you need something clickable today, not a design system.
• Landing pages and marketing sites: a handful of distinctive elements, each custom.
• Filling gaps: your framework lacks one specific component, and you don't want to build it from scratch.
• Learning: reading well-made CSS is one of the fastest ways to improve.
• Small projects: a personal site doesn't need a theming architecture.

Where they fall short

• Consistency at scale: ten elements from ten contributors rarely look like one product.
• Maintenance: you own every copy. When your design changes, you edit each one.
• Accessibility debt: you inherit whatever the contributor did or didn't do.
• No upstream fixes: a bug fixed in the original won't reach your copy.
• Integration friction: different naming conventions, different units, different assumptions about resets.

When to choose which

Choose an element library when the scope is small, the timeline is short, or you need a few distinctive pieces rather than a whole system.

Choose a framework or design system when multiple people build multiple screens over months, when consistency is a product requirement, or when accessibility and theming need to be guaranteed rather than checked.

A hybrid works well for many teams: adopt a framework for the structural components—forms, navigation, layout—and borrow individual elements for the places where you want personality. Just route every borrowed element through the same token and accessibility checks, so it lands as part of your system rather than beside it.

The short version: open-source UI element libraries are a fast, flexible way to get good-looking interface pieces into a project. They are not a substitute for a design system, and the license and accessibility details are the part worth reading carefully.

organize is a command-line, open-source file management automation tool. You can use it to sort, rename, copy, move, and clean up files based on rules you define, rather than doing the work by hand. It is a fit if you want repeatable, scriptable file organization on macOS, Windows, or Linux, and you are comfortable running commands in a shell. It is not a graphical app, so it is a poor fit if you need a point-and-click interface.

The documentation lists these common uses:

• Sorting and tagging pictures into various folder structures based on EXIF data
• Sorting and renaming PDF invoices based on file content
• Removing incomplete downloads from ~/Downloads
• Cleaning up ~/Desktop from unused files
• Freeing up disk space by removing duplicates
• Automating various business processes

How these tasks map to features

Each use case depends on a specific capability of the tool:

What makes it flexible

Beyond the built-in filters and actions, organize supports a powerful template engine and lets you run inline Python and shell commands as filters and actions. That means a rule is not limited to the operations the tool ships with — you can express custom logic when a built-in filter does not cover your case.

A second practical feature is simulation: everything can be simulated before touching your files. You can preview what a rule would do before committing changes, which matters when a rule moves or deletes files.

Getting started

Only Python 3.9+ is required. Install via pip — note the package name is organize-tool:

pip install -U organize-tool

The same command updates to the newest version. Verify the install with:

organize --help

Create and edit your first rule:

organize new
organize edit

A minimal rule looks like this:

rules:
  - name: "Find PDFs"
    locations:
      - ~/Downloads
    subfolders: true
    filters:
      - extension: pdf
    actions:
      - echo: "Found PDF!"

If you have trouble editing the configuration, organize show --reveal can help locate it.

Version note

Version 3 is now available. According to the documentation, it should be much faster and fixes a lot of bugs, and it adds new actions, filters, and options. If you are migrating from an older version, a changelog and migration guide are provided. If you hit bugs or problems during migration, the project asks you to reach out.

When to choose something else

organize is a command-line tool, so it suits users who want automation they can version, script, and run repeatedly. If you prefer a GUI, the documentation positions organize as an open-source alternative to apps like Hazel (macOS) or File Juggler (Windows) — those are the graphical options to compare against if clicking through a window is a requirement. organize itself is free and open-source software.

An organize rule is a YAML list entry built from four core parts: name, locations, filters, and actions. The locations block tells organize where to look, filters narrow that set down to the files you care about, and actions define what happens to each match. A rule only needs to be written once, then it runs the same way every time. This structure applies to organize v3, which the project describes as faster and with more actions, filters, and options than earlier versions.

The four components

name

A label for the rule. It appears in output and logs, so use something that identifies the job, such as "Find PDFs" or "Sort invoices". It does not affect which files are matched.

locations

The folders organize should scan. Each entry is a path, and ~ expands to your home directory:

locations:
  - ~/Downloads
  - ~/Desktop

Adding subfolders: true makes organize descend into nested folders instead of only reading the top level. Without it, files in subdirectories are ignored.

filters

Filters decide which files from the locations are kept. They combine, so a file must pass all of them. The documentation lists filters for extension, file content, and EXIF tags, among others. Examples:

• extension: pdf — only PDF files.
• Content-based filters — read text extracted from PDF, DOCX, and similar formats, useful for renaming invoices by what is inside them.
• EXIF filters — read camera metadata, useful for sorting photos into folder structures.

actions

Actions run on every file that survives the filters. The docs mention moving, renaming, and copying with conflict-resolution options, plus inline Python and shell commands for cases the built-in actions do not cover. A minimal action just prints a message:

actions:
  - echo: "Found PDF!"

A complete rule

rules:
  - name: "Find PDFs"
    locations:
      - ~/Downloads
    subfolders: true
    filters:
      - extension: pdf
    actions:
      - echo: "Found PDF!"

Read top to bottom: scan ~/Downloads including subfolders, keep files ending in .pdf, then print Found PDF! for each one.

How the parts interact

The order matters conceptually: locations produce a candidate set, filters shrink it, actions consume the result. A filter that matches nothing means the actions never run.

Editing and testing

Run organize new to create a configuration, then organize edit to open it. If editing is awkward, organize show --reveal shows the configuration file location. Because organize can simulate everything before touching your files, you can confirm a rule matches what you expect before letting its actions move or rename anything.

Common sticking points

• Forgetting subfolders: true — files nested below the listed folder are silently skipped.
• Stacking filters too tightly — each added filter removes more files; if a rule stops matching, remove filters one at a time to find the culprit.
• Expecting actions to run on non-matches — actions only see files that passed every filter.
• Assuming a rule is safe because it looks right — use the simulation step first, especially for move, rename, and copy actions with conflict resolution.

Install organize with pip install -U organize-tool on a machine running Python 3.9 or newer, then verify the install with organize --help. From there, run organize new to create a configuration and organize edit to add your first rule. The example below finds PDFs in your Downloads folder and prints a message for each one — a safe way to confirm the tool works before you let it move or rename anything.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9 or newer. Install it through your package manager or from python.org.
• A shell. organize is a command line tool, so you'll run everything from a terminal.
• No account or license needed. organize is free and open source software, and it works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Install organize

The package name on PyPI is organize-tool, not organize:

pip install -U organize-tool

The -U flag also updates an existing installation to the newest version, so the same command works for upgrades.

Verify the installation succeeded:

organize --help

If you see the help output, you're ready to write a rule. If the command isn't found, your Python scripts directory likely isn't on your PATH — check your pip installation notes for that platform.

Create your first rule

Run:

organize new

This creates a configuration file. Then open it for editing:

organize edit

Paste in this rule, which finds PDFs in your Downloads folder and echoes a message for each match:

rules:
  - name: "Find PDFs"
    locations:
      - ~/Downloads
    subfolders: true
    filters:
      - extension: pdf
    actions:
      - echo: "Found PDF!"

Each part does a specific job:

If you have trouble editing the configuration, run organize show --reveal to find where the file lives on disk.

Verify before you act

The echo action is deliberately harmless: it proves your rule matches the files you expect without moving, renaming, or deleting anything. Run the rule and read the output. If the wrong files match, adjust the locations or filters and run it again.

organize is built around this idea — everything can be simulated before your files are touched. Once your rule matches exactly what you want, swap echo for a real action such as moving or renaming.

Where to go next

The same rule structure scales to the tasks organize is commonly used for: sorting and tagging pictures by EXIF data, renaming PDF invoices based on their content, clearing incomplete downloads from ~/Downloads, cleaning up ~/Desktop, and removing duplicate files to free disk space.

Beyond extension, you can filter by extracted text from PDF and DOCX files, and actions can include inline Python or shell commands for cases the built-in actions don't cover. The full documentation on Read the Docs covers configuration, rules, locations, filters, actions, and Docker usage.

A note on versions: v3 is the current release and is described as much faster with fewer bugs, plus new actions, filters, and options. If you're migrating from an older version, follow the migration guide and changelog rather than reusing an old configuration unchanged.