Folio: Organize your files using AI on-device
This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side Hustle What I Built I built Folio, a macOS menu bar app that organises downloaded files using local AI. Downloads folders tend to accumulate invoices, receipts, screenshots, lecture notes, and random PDFs. I wanted to build something that could organise these files automatically without requiring me to stop what I’m…
This article is about a new macOS menu bar app called Folio, which uses local AI to organize downloaded files. Users often accumulate invoices, receipts, screenshots, lecture notes, and random PDFs in their downloads folder. Folio aims to automatically organize these files without interrupting the user's workflow. When a file arrives in a watched folder, Folio employs a local Gemma model to suggest a filename and destination.
For instance, an invoice (3).pdf might be renamed to Finance/Invoices/Work/Cobalt Cloud Hosting Invoice 2026-10.pdf.
Folio also features a Restructure mode, which allows users to review proposed changes before applying them. If Folio is unsure where a file belongs, it leaves it alone and adds it to a review list. The app does not delete or overwrite files and logs every move before execution.
The development of Folio faced the challenge of ensuring the safe use of AI to modify the filesystem. Folio utilizes two models through Ollama: Gemma (gemma4:12b) for suggesting filenames, destination folders, and restructuring plans, and mxbai-embed-large for retrieving similar past corrections to adapt to the user's filing preferences. The application manages text extraction, folder discovery, and validation.
To test Folio's models, a 50-file evaluation set containing various types of files was created. The results showed that the 12B model achieved the best accuracy and processing time, with 98% of auto-moved files correct, only 2% incorrect across all files, and an average time of 7.2 seconds per file. The smaller model was less accurate but had faster processing times, averaging 1.9 seconds per file.
The 12B model was chosen for its accuracy and speed, and the thinking mode added significant latency, which was disabled to reduce processing time.
Folio is designed for use by freelancers and small business owners who regularly handle sensitive documents. The app is built using Swift 6 and SwiftUI, relying on Apple's native frameworks and avoiding third-party packages. With a one-time license price of $19.99, Folio aims to make file organization a once setup-and-forget solution, operating in the background without sending sensitive documents to the cloud.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
