If your Downloads folder looks like a war zone 😭 (PDFs + images + zip files everywhere), you’re not alone.

So I built a beginner-friendly Python script that automatically:

✅ Organizes files into folders (PDFs / Images / Docs / Zips / Videos / Sheets)

✅ Creates a folder for today’s date (YYYY-MM-DD)

✅ Renames every file with a timestamp (date/time)

✅ Prevents overwriting duplicates (_1, _2, _3…)

Result: your Downloads folder becomes clean, sorted, and searchable ✅

▶️ Video Tutorial (Silent Coding / No Talking)

I recorded a quick walkthrough showing the before → code → run → after.

📺 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/A3Yz100IbLw

(You can also check my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CodeGees

)

Downloads/

Images/2026-01-16/2026-01-16_14-20-05_photo.png

PDFs/2026-01-16/2026-01-16_14-20-05_report.pdf

Zips/2026-01-16/2026-01-16_14-20-05_project.zip

import os

from datetime import datetime

✅ Downloads folder

downloads_folder = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser("~"), "Downloads")

✅ Today's date folder

today_date = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d")

✅ File categories

file_categories = {

"PDFs": (".pdf",),

"Images": (".png", ".jpg", ".jpeg", ".webp"),

"Docs": (".docx", ".txt"),

"Zips": (".zip", ".rar", ".7z"),

"Videos": (".mp4", ".mov"),

"Sheets": (".xlsx", ".csv"),

}

✅ Loop through downloads

for filename in os.listdir(downloads_folder):

old_path = os.path.join(downloads_folder, filename)

# Skip folders

if os.path.isdir(old_path):

    continue



# Skip shortcuts/temp/system files

if filename.lower().endswith((".lnk", ".tmp", ".ini")):

    continue



# Find file extension

file_ext = os.path.splitext(filename)[1].lower()



# Pick category folder

category_name = next(

    (name for name, exts in file_categories.items() if file_ext in exts),

    "Other"

)



# Create target folder (type + date)

target_folder = os.path.join(downloads_folder, category_name, today_date)

os.makedirs(target_folder, exist_ok=True)



# Create timestamp rename

file_name, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)

timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")

new_path = os.path.join(target_folder, f"{timestamp}_{file_name}{ext}")



# Avoid overwriting duplicates

counter = 1

while os.path.exists(new_path):

    new_path = os.path.join(target_folder, f"{timestamp}_{file_name}_{counter}{ext}")

    counter += 1



# Rename + move

os.rename(old_path, new_path)



print("✅", filename, "→", category_name)

print("\n🎉 Done! Downloads are now organized by type + date."

✅ Try it Yourself

Save the file as: downloads_folder_organizer.py

Run it:

python downloads_folder_organizer.py