Automatically Organize Your Screenshots on Mac with launchd

If you’re anything like me, you take a lot of screenshots for various purposes—be it work, personal projects, or just capturing something interesting on your screen. Over time, however, these screenshots can clutter your desktop or screenshots folder, making it hard to find what you need. I use Shottr, a fantastic screenshot tool for Mac (find them on Twitter), which makes taking screenshots a breeze. But, like many, I needed a solution to keep these screenshots organized without manually sorting them into folders.

Today, I’ll show you how to automate organizing your screenshots into folders by their creation dates using a simple script and launchd, macOS’s built-in scheduler. This method is not only efficient but also runs quietly in the background, keeping your folders tidy with zero effort on your part.

Step 1: The Cleanup Script

First, we need to create a script that does the heavy lifting—moving screenshots into year-month formatted folders. Open your favorite text editor and save the following script as screenshots-cleanup.sh in a convenient location (e.g., your home directory):

#!/bin/zsh

# Define the path to your screenshots folder
SCREENSHOTS_DIR="$HOME/Desktop/Screenshots"

cd "$SCREENSHOTS_DIR"

for file in *; do
    # Skip directories
    if [[ -d "$file" ]]; then
        continue
    fi

    # Extract year and month from the file's modification time
    year_month=$(stat -f "%Sm" -t "%Y-%m" "$file")

    # Create a directory for the year and month if it doesn't exist
    if [[ ! -d "$year_month" ]]; then
        mkdir "$year_month"
    fi

    # Move the file into the corresponding directory
    mv "$file" "$year_month/"
done

Make sure to replace "$HOME/Desktop/Screenshots" with the path to your actual screenshots folder. If you’re using Shottr, you can configure its preferences to save screenshots to a specific folder.

Make the Script Executable

Run the following command in your terminal to make the script executable:

1	chmod +x /path/to/screenshots-cleanup.sh

Step 2: Setting Up `launchd`

Next, we’ll use launchd to schedule this script to run automatically. Create a .plist file named com.user.organizescreenshots.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.organizescreenshots</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/path/to/screenshots-cleanup.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Weekday</key>
        <integer>0</integer> <!-- 0 is Sunday -->
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>10</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

This configuration will run the cleanup script every Sunday at 10 AM. You can adjust the <integer> values under <key>StartCalendarInterval</key> to suit your preferred schedule.

Load the Launch Agent

To start the scheduled task, run this command:

1	launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.organizescreenshots.plist

And that’s it! Your Mac will now automatically organize your screenshots into neatly labeled folders each week, making it easier to find and manage them.

Conclusion

With Shottr for capturing screenshots and this automated organizing system, maintaining a clutter-free screenshots folder has never been easier. This setup saves you time and keeps your digital workspace organized, allowing you to focus on more important tasks.

Feel free to share this guide with anyone who might find it useful, and happy organizing!

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