Tidy lives in the menu bar. Open it and you see five groups of cards: Organize, Name, Find, Protect and Your Mac. This guide goes card by card, in that order, with the questions people ask by email. If yours isn't here, write to hola@tidymacapp.com: the answers end up on this page. Léela en español.
Before the features, what no version changes:
At the very top there are two controls that rule the rest.
Automatic tidying (the big switch). On, Tidy files things on its own according to your rules. Paused, it stops moving things by itself — and only that: search, scan, extract text and stage mode keep working, because they never depended on it.
Dry run mode. On, Tidy moves nothing: it builds the plan and shows it in the Pending card, file by file, with checkboxes. Untick what you don't want, press Apply, and only then does what's ticked move. From each row you can show the file in the Finder or send it to the Trash (not deleted; there's an "Undo" below). It's the recommended way to get to know the app in the first days.
Each group folds and unfolds; so does each card. Right-click a card to hide it; hidden cards are listed at the foot of the panel so you can bring them back.
Handles the screenshots that land on the Desktop. It can read the screenshot's text and name it by itself ("invoice-march.png"), move it to a hidden folder after a delay you choose (5 minutes to 1 hour), and send old ones to the Trash after 1, 7 or 30 days (30 by default) — or never, if you prefer. Optional: group them by the app that was in front when you took the screenshot (Figma, Zoom, Safari…).
When you install an app from a .dmg, Tidy notices the copy is done, ejects the disk and sends the installer to the Trash. It goes beyond macOS's "Eject When Finished". It works in any watched folder, not only Downloads.
Sorts what arrives in Downloads from the moment you switch the rule on: PDFs to Documents, spreadsheets to their folder, images, installers… It comes with eleven rules made, and you can write one in your own words ("PDFs that say invoice go to Invoices") and let the app build it.
Each rule can filter by extension, by what the name says, by what's inside (images and PDFs), by where the file came from (WhatsApp, Mail, AirDrop, a website) and by minimum age: 1 hour, 6 hours, 1 day, 7, 30 or 90 days. It can move to a subfolder of Downloads, to a folder outside (iCloud Drive, an external disk) or just rename and leave the file where it is.
Other folders. "Watch another folder…" applies the same rules to a folder you choose. Tidy doesn't go into subfolders unless you switch on "Include subfolders" for that folder.
How often do rules run? Can I make them wait?
Tidy sweeps the folders every 15 seconds and only touches a file once it has stopped changing for 8 seconds (so it never interrupts a download in progress). If you want a file to sit for a while first, give the rule a minimum age: "1 hour" or "6 hours" are there for that.
What about what was already in Downloads?
It isn't touched on its own. To file it, press "Organize now" in Flow Rules (it asks first) or "Tidy older files…" on an added folder. With dry run on, both show you the plan before moving anything.
Gathers the loose subfolders in Downloads that aren't the destination of any rule into a single folder, counting from the last change inside each one ("only ones untouched for 7 days"). Tidy proposes them and you tick which.
A manual pass. Tidy reads your images, PDFs and documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Pages, Numbers, RTF, HTML) in Downloads and Desktop, up to 40 per pass, and proposes a name from what's inside. Each file brings several suggestions — "‹ 2 of 5 ›" — all taken from its text; you can edit the proposal before applying. "Open in a window" shows the current and the proposed name side by side.
For photos with no text, if you switch it on, it proposes labels of what it recognises (landscape, food, interior): "outdoor-rocks-water.jpg", not a sentence. Those are never pre-ticked.
How the names Tidy proposes are written: lowercase or not, the separator, dates in the name, German transliteration (ä → ae). It applies to screenshots renamed by OCR and to rules that rename by content. With Apple Intelligence available, you can describe the name you want in a prompt ("in German, lowercase, date YYYY-MM-DD at the end") and the local model follows it; without a prompt, classic OCR is used.
Point your iPhone's camera and the photo lands straight in Downloads, cropped, straightened and named by what it says — without going through the phone. Choose photo or PDF (and a PDF takes as many pages as you like). It needs the iPhone nearby, with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on, and Handoff enabled on both devices.
The iPhone doesn't show up.
Handoff is a switch of its own, separate from iCloud: on the iPhone, Settings › General › AirPlay & Continuity; on the Mac, System Settings › General › AirDrop & Handoff. The iPhone has to be locked and still, rear camera towards the paper. If it doesn't appear in Photo Booth either, it's the Mac, not Tidy. Meanwhile: in the Finder, right-click Downloads › Import from iPhone › Scan Documents.
Drop PDFs or images on the card (or on its floating window) and the full text is saved to a .txt next to the original. On macOS 15 or later it can also translate it, offline, with Apple's translator.
It's the feature most people buy Tidy for. It searches inside your images, PDFs and documents — scanned ones too, where Spotlight can't read because they have no text layer. It opens with ⌥ Space from any app (the shortcut can be changed or switched off in the card), or with the "Search" button. Type a word, see the files that contain it with the snippet where it appears, and press ↩ to open one or ⌘R to show it in the Finder.
Tidy keeps an index on your Mac, encrypted with a key in your Keychain, with the text of every document it has read. The card tells you how many. It fills up in three ways: when you search, when it files and when it renames.
Do I have to let Tidy organize my files to be able to search?
No. With automatic tidying paused, Tidy is a pure search tool. Add your folders in Flow Rules › "Watch another folder…" (with "Include subfolders" if needed) and search them; nothing moves.
Does it read the whole disk? How do I know it has indexed everything?
It reads inside the folders you watch (Downloads, Desktop and the ones you add), not the whole disk. When a word isn't among what's already read, the panel offers "Also read the files it hasn't opened yet": each pass reads 300 new files and, if more were left, tells you how many and offers "Read 300 more". The first pass over thousands of scans takes a while; later ones don't re-read what's already read.
Compares what's inside your files, not their size or name: it finds the same contract scanned twice even if they're named differently. It only compares what Tidy has already read, so the more you search, the more complete it is. You choose which one stays.
When Tidy reads a bill and finds a clear due date, it shows it and offers to create the reminder in Reminders. If the date isn't clear, it says nothing.
Whatever you mark is out of Tidy's reach: not moved, not renamed, not sent to the Trash, by any rule or feature, nor as a duplicate. Mark it with a right-click in the Finder → "Tidy: Keep off this", and unmark it with "Tidy: Allow again" or from the card.
Looks at what's in plain view in your watched folders and warns you if a sensitive document was left lying around: cards, IDs, passports, bank accounts, contracts, API keys and passwords in text files. It only runs when you ask.
Before sharing your screen: hides the Desktop icons, the widgets, the Dock and, if you want, the menu bar (with the same "automatically hide" as System Settings; the first time macOS asks your permission), and mutes Tidy's notices. Switch it off and everything comes right back. It can be toggled with a keyboard shortcut from any app.
Puts a colour tag, in the Finder, on the files Tidy moves, so you can see at a glance what the app touched without opening it. It's added to the tags you already have; Tidy never removes yours.
iCloud uploads files and leaves a placeholder on your Mac — and you notice on the plane. This button brings back whatever is "cloud-only" in your watched folders. It's a one-off action, not a mode.
Measures how much your files grew over the last months and projects when you'll run out of space. It only runs when you ask, and everything stays on your Mac.
On a file or folder, the Finder's context menu shows three Tidy commands, together: "Tidy: Rename" opens the review window with the proposed name; "Tidy: Keep off this" protects it; "Tidy: Allow again" removes the protection. If they don't appear, they're under System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › Services.
Tidy costs $9 once. When you buy, you receive an access code by email; it's verified on your Mac, offline, with no account. If you lose it, write to hola@tidymacapp.com from the purchase email.
Updates are free and arrive on their own: the app tells you when there's a new one and shows what changed before installing it. The full history is at the foot of the panel and at /novedades.
It needs macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel. It's not on the Mac App Store (the "Folder Tidy" app there is from another company). If it isn't for you, there's a 14-day guarantee: write and the money comes back, no questions.
This guide is written from the questions that arrive. If yours isn't here, send it to hola@tidymacapp.com and the next person will find it here. — Sebastián, Santiago, Chile.