Microsoft Windows can be bad. It is not (always) an operating system error. You download tons of apps and files and create your own new content until your “Download” index looks like a dump of old content. Your desktop is full of icons, you can’t see your beautiful wallpaper. Your first menu looks like an app buffet. In short, your operating system is malicious, but not fixable.
We view spring cleaning as the most important thing in Lifehacker. Far be it from us to allow the opportunity for renewal, reorganization, and disintegration of our home life to pass us by. And we have good reason to click the reset button on our technology application, take a good look at our finances, and give heave-ho daily practices that we have had a bit of a problem with. Welcome to Spring Cleaning Week, where we take out the winter and set the stage for the next sunny days. Let’s clean things up, right?
There are a few free apps that you can use to add much-needed organization to your Windows world. Here are a few of our favorites:
DropIt
We put this app together a long time ago, but it’s worth raising. DropIt is a great service that can help you stay organized if you are the type of person who dumps everything you download (or copy to your PC) into a single folder – a large, creepy hack that can hold multiple files, but rarely does.
DropIt allows you to set different tones that you can use whenever you drag files into a small program icon. For example, you can set the app to always upload image files to your main photo folder, video files to your video folder, and Word documents to guess them – to your documents folder.
That is just the beginning. If you want to upgrade, DropIt can automatically scan folders (like your Download folder) and apply the most advanced filters to whatever it finds, such as automatically opening archives, renaming files based on your parameters, or compressing large collections of such files. taking up more space than you want.
Automation is a great way to help you stay organized on Windows, and DropIt gives you a visual helper in your hands.
digiKam
If your wide-ranging photo library needs some sensitive organization but you don’t want to pay for something like Adobe Lightroom, the digiKam open-source app is another great option.
Use this app to filter your photos and create (or edit) metadata to get exactly what you want in one easy-to-access library. If you are also a good photographer, you can use digiKam to customize your regular shots with RAW to make them look like a photo.
This app is a much better solution for organizing photos than just throwing them into Windows unfold folders. Your random hard drive will thank you, and they will be less likely to lose (or forget) photos going forward.
LaunchBox
We will not ask you why you have so many emulators installed in your system, and we will assume that all ROMs are spread out in that bad dream of folder structure in the “Games” section of your hard drive is complete. official. Okay? Anyway, if you have just spent the last day getting your nostalgia by downloading archives of thousands of different retro games to play on your modern PC, keeping these games under control will sound daunting.
We suggest you hold LaunchBox, a great “game editor” tool that lets you quickly find and play articles in your main library. You can log on to a crowded app website to populate your topics with useful information, such as release dates, genres, publishers, and photos, and you can mark specific games as favorites to make theme hunting easier when you have less time. to kill.
LaunchBox also makes it (somehow) easier to import games from your favorite distribution apps, such as Steam, Battle.net, and GoG (to name a few). If you are a great gaming player in the world who plays everything you can download and always picks up new titles to try out on all the great services, LaunchBox is a great way to organize your games under one digital roof.
AquaSnap
Everyone knows Windows’ Aero Snap shortcuts, right? Tap Windows Key + one of the arrow keys on your keyboard to send your active window flying around your screen: shrink, open, shrink to complete a quarter or half of your display, and fully bump your first display (if you have a multi-monitor setting ).
AquaSnap takes this idea seriously. You can capture your windows in different parts of your display, like Aero Snap, but you can do a lot more.