Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 62: Automatically Clean Up Your PC

Level Advanced

Platform Windows

Cost Free

During the course of a workday, you save all sorts of disposable files on your computer: video, images, and songs meant for a single viewing or hearing; PDF files you have to print; and software installers and Zip files you extract and do whatever you need with the contents. The end result is a lot of digital detritus clogging your hard drive for no good reason. But you don’t want to clean up after yourself every time you work with a set of files you don’t need to keep.

Few people are disorganized because it’s their preference. But organization takes time, and however little time it may be, it’s generally easier to do nothing than to take a few seconds to file something away in the appropriate folder.

In this hack, you set up a virtual butler I created, called Belvedere1 that sweeps through your hard drive regularly and deletes any file or performs other actions on files that meet criteria you define — for example files that have been sitting around for more than x days, like old garbage starting to stink. This program constantly recovers space on your hard drive and moves files around so your hard drive remains organized and clean. Download Belvedere from http://lifehacker.com/#!341950/.

Empty Your Downloads Folder with Belvedere

After you install and launch Belvedere, you’ll notice a new icon running in your system tray. Right-click the Belvedere icon and click Manage to create a new rule. Click ...