Hard Drive Hygene: Downloads Zero

By Robert Fischer | Published: November 24, 2009

I recently blew my computer away and re-built everything from scratch. IA lot of cruft had built up, and instead of trying to scour my computer, I just punted and started all over.

One of the things I’ve done is adopted a kind of “Downloads Zero” approach (akin to “Inbox Zero“): I had built up a lot of crap in the Downloads folder, and I had become afraid of what to throw away and what was important. This ate up a bunch of hard drive and was generally a source of low-grade anxiety that I didn’t need. So I’ve implemented a new plan: each I log into my computer, I wipe the Downloads folder completely. This means that if something’s important in Downloads, I have to consciously move it out of that folder and into someplace else. So far, it’s going great: there’s a surprisingly refreshing feeling when I see an empty Downloads folder!

To implement this on OS-X, create a folder named ~/logs and a file named ~/bin/cleanup_downloads.command with the following content:

name=cleanup_downloads
rm -PRf ~/Downloads/* 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null

Then, in System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items, click the little + and select ~/bin/cleanup_downloads.command.

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  • http://www.afeared.org Antony Jones

    Good ideas, personally I make all operations on temporary files on my desktop, meaning I’m constantly reminded if things are not clean and tidy!

    I find the ~/Downloads folder is a bit hidden away for my liking.

    • http://www.enzy.org Antony Jones

      Yes, this is exactly my approach. Desktop items constantly bug me, so I am constantly cleaning my ‘downloaded items’.

      I’ve done this since I was 14, I hated the idea at first, but now, 14 years on, I could not do it any other way.

      Robert, your method demands credit, but is way too risky for me!

  • http://elehack.net/michael Michael E

    Interesting idea. I too suffer from a large quantity of cruft in my downloads folder (it was worse in my Windows days, when i would carry around gigabytes of frequently outdated freeware installers).

    I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to get this extreme about it, but it might be beneficial.

    • http://www.smokejumperit.com Robert Fischer

      @Michael

      It’s not that extreme: after all, if it’s in the downloads folder, you got it from the internet, which means you can always get it from the internet again if you need to!

      • http://www.enzy.org Antony Jones

        You don’t visit a lot of taiwanese motherboard manufacturer’s sites, do you? ;)

  • http://blog.barrkel.com/ Barry Kelly

    I just file away everything I download to my file server, into directories created according to date, in an automated fashion.

    My file server is over 7TB in size, and it’ll grow exponentially over time as HDs get larger, so I generally don’t worry about it.

  • http://blog.barrkel.com/ Barry Kelly

    Oh, and it’s a mistake to think you can download everything again. It’s can be hard enough to find many e.g. game mods and the like three or four years after the fact, never mind 10 or 12.

  • http://www.smokejumperit.com Robert Fischer

    @Barry

    If I had effectively unlimited disk space on my network, I’d probably do the same: instead of deleting, I’d just move it over to a mounted network directory based on date. I’m not in that position, though, so I just wipe it.

    I considered burning everything to DVDs every once in a while, but that seems like a pain and more hassle than it’s worth. If there’s something valuable which I may want later, I’ll just have to be pro-active about saving it or accept life without it. So far, I’ve been able to survive just fine that way.

  • Ingo Richter

    Great Idea! After reading your blog post I had a look into one of my Downloads folder. On my Desktop machine there were 12G of data and files. Much more than I thought. And lot’s of really old stuff. Huge amount of wasted diskspace. Now I will do the same with my Downloads folder. Remove everthing that wasn’t filed accordingly (if neccessary at all) and gain more space for the important stuff. Thanks.

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