Will it mix up my source files and my exports?

No — that is the whole point. The recipes separate editable sources (.fig, .psd, .ai) from exports (.png, .svg, renders) into different folders, so the thing you can still edit never gets lost among the things you generated from it.

Do I need a rule for every client?

Only if you want automatic per-client folders, and only for active clients — one rule each, keyed to the client’s name. The file-type recipes (Figma files, icons, fonts, renders) work across all your clients at once, so most of the sorting happens with no per-client setup at all.

Does my work leave my computer?

No. All the sorting happens locally, moving files on your own disk. Nothing is uploaded and no account is required. If you want a client folder shared, you point a rule at a synced folder yourself — that is your cloud drive doing the sharing, on your terms.

Can it rename my exports to a consistent pattern?

Yes. An action can move and rename in one step — for example, stamping the date onto a file so your archive reads 2026-06-05_name. The Photoshop: archive PSDs by month recipe does exactly this for .psd files.

What if it files something wrong?

Nothing is deleted. Files are moved and every run is recorded, so “Undo” puts a run back exactly as it was. Running “Simulate effect” first means you see the outcome before anything moves at all. Available now on the Microsoft Store.

Organize design files by client, automatically

A designer’s desk is never one thing. In a single afternoon you save a Figma file, export twelve screens at @2x, download three fonts, pull two stock photos, and render a final video for review. All of it lands in the same Downloads folder as your bank statement and a meme someone sent you. By Friday the folder is a landfill, and when the client asks for “the final logo” you are digging through logo_final.svg, logo_final_OK.svg and logo_FINAL_v3.svg to guess which one you actually sent.

The waste is not the design work. It is the twenty minutes a day spent being a file clerk — dragging, renaming, hunting. That part a computer can do, and it can do it by the two things that actually identify a design file: what kind of file it is and who it is for.

Why folders-by-hand fail creative work#

Design output is a zoo of formats. Editable sources (.fig, .psd, .ai, .indd), exports (.png, .jpg, .svg), fonts, stock, renders — each wants a different home, and they all arrive mixed together. Sorting them by hand means making the same decision hundreds of times a week: this is a source, that is an export, this belongs to Acme, that is personal. You will do it well on Monday and badly by Thursday, because willpower is not a filing system.

The fix is to stop sorting and start describing. You tell Elegant File Explorer once what a Figma file is, or what a screen export looks like, and it files every future one for you — on your own PC, moving files, never deleting them.

The ready-made recipes that already fit a studio#

Open the Recipe Gallery (the rule wizard offers it with “How about starting from a ready-made recipe?”) and the Design & UI/UX and Adobe & Creative packs already cover most of a designer’s clutter. A few that pull real weight:

Figma, Sketch & XD gathers your interface source files (.fig, .sketch, .xd) into Design\Projects with the UI project tag — your editable work, kept away from the exports.
Icons and vectors (SVG/EPS) collects .svg and .eps into Design\Assets with the Asset tag, so your reusable library stops scattering across Downloads.
Screen exports (@2x/@3x) recognizes handoff images by the density marker in the name (@1x, @2x, @3x) or by “mockup”/“screen” and files them into Design\Exports with the UI export tag — the batch you send to a developer, in one place.
Stock images organized knows the naming fingerprints of the stock sites themselves (pexels-, unsplash, freepik, shutterstock, envato, istock) and moves those downloads into Design\Stock images with the Stock tag, apart from your personal photos and easy to credit later.
Adobe: gather project files sweeps up .psd, .ai, .indd, .prproj, .aep and .xd into Adobe\Projects by month, tagged Adobe Project — the editable originals separated from everything they generate.
Downloaded fonts to install rounds up .ttf, .otf, .woff and .woff2 into a “Fonts to install” folder with the Font tag, so the hunt for a typeface at layout-closing time is over.

None of these read the inside of your files or touch the internet. They match on the file type and the name, and they move — the source you were about to lose is one tag away.

One folder per client, on its own#

Recipes sort by what. The other half of a studio’s sanity is sorting by who. If you put the client’s name in your file names — most of us already do, at least loosely — one rule per active client turns that habit into automatic filing.

Open Auto-organization and click + New rule.
Rule name: the client, e.g. Acme — brand refresh.
Monitored folders: click + Add folder, Browse… and pick your Downloads (add the Desktop too, if work lands there).
When to run: “Automatically, when a file arrives (real time)”, so a delivery is filed the moment it saves.
Which files (conditions): one condition — the client’s name — so anything named for Acme is caught.
What to do (actions): in order, “Apply tag” → Acme, then “Move to” → Design\Clients\Acme\{year}.

Click “Simulate effect” to see the Preview — nothing is actually changed, then “Save rule”. From then on, every file that carries the client’s name files itself into that client’s folder, tagged and dated, no matter what format it is. One rule per active client, and the studio folder builds itself.

Keep finals apart from drafts#

The single most expensive mistake in creative work is sending the wrong version. Two things keep the final and the draft from ever touching.

First, the Final video renders by month recipe recognizes exported video by the words we all use — “render”, “master”, “final”, “export” — and files those into Videos\Renders by year and month with the Render tag. The delivery never mixes with the raw footage again, and the version the client asked for is exactly where you look.

Second, drafts and recovery files have a way of breeding. The Editing: sweep up auto-saves and recovered files recipe finds auto-saves and recovered copies older than two days — “Auto-Save”, “autosave”, “recovered” — and moves them into a “_Auto-saves (review)” folder, tagged Auto-save, without touching the recent ones you might still need. Your project folders get lighter, and the only PSDs left in view are the ones you meant to keep.

Hand off without the hunt#

Once a client’s finals live in their own folder, delivery is almost free. Point a rule’s “Move to” at a folder your cloud drive already syncs, and “filed on my PC” becomes “shared with the client” with no email, no zip, no “please find attached.” The finals arrive in the shared folder the moment they are approved.

And when you cannot remember which file it was — only that the brief mentioned a particular tagline, or that one export had the client’s slogan on it — the built-in Finder (Ctrl+Space) searches your whole PC instantly, and with Deep Search on it looks inside documents too. Our guide to instant file search on Windows walks through it.

Nothing is deleted, everything is reversible#

The fear with any automation is that it moves the wrong asset. Two guardrails answer it. “Simulate effect” shows you the full preview — every move, before a single file budges. And every run is logged: click “Undo” on a run and it all goes back. Moving is moving, never deleting; a file sent to the wrong client folder is one click from home. Run the simulation once, watch it do exactly what you expected, and then let it run for real.