sloth-tidy: a local AI that tidies your messy folder (and lets you undo it)

Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 3: Slow and Steady Submission 🦥

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 3: Slow and Steady

My Downloads folder is a museum of good intentions: IMG_0509.png, final_FINAL_v3.md, a pile of WhatsApp Image 2026-09-23 at 9.12.19 PM.png, and an invoice I keep meaning to deal with. Sorting it by hand is exactly the kind of chore I put off forever.

sloth-tidy is a lazy, local, undoable file tidier. You point it at a folder. A small open-weight model running on my own laptop reads each file's name and the start of its contents, decides what the file is, gives it a clean name, and files it away:

Receipts/ invoice-7qecmbeg-0001.pdf, payment-receipt-0612-9321.pdf Documents/ daily-notes.docx Images/ whatsapp-image-2026-09-23.png,... Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode The only effort left for me is one click to approve. It has a small browser UI ( python3 sloth_tidy.py gui ) and a CLI, including a watch mode that tidies a folder in the background every few minutes.

Because a lazy tool must not be a reckless one, it is built to be safe to be lazy with:

The video shows the whole flow on a real folder of 13 files: a no-AI dry run, the real run with the model, reviewing the plan, moving the files, and Undo.

A small open-weight model running in Ollama reads each file's name and a short snippet, picks a category and a clean file name, and moves it. Nothing leaves your machine.

Built for the DEV Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge, Week 3: Slow and Steady Started and finished inside the challenge window (Oct 19 to Oct 25, 2026).

🧠 Reads, not just sorts A rule engine only sees the extension. The model also sees the file's name and, for text files, its first lines, so an invoice can land in Receipts/ with a readable name. 🔒 Private by construction Files are read by a model on your own machine. No API key, no upload, works offline. 👀 Look before it moves Dry run by default. You get a plan grouped by category and can …