Beta 0.1

Available here while the Mac App Store release is in the works

What would help most: run it against your real Downloads folder and tell me whether grouping by source holds up. That is the question deciding whether this product should exist. Two minutes, tops.

Download the betaDownloads Inbox 0.1

876K · macOS 14 or later · Intel and Apple Silicon

SHA-256 2623250d7fa2cdadb3da89272cdd677e9b445d3b774512b925def0cff3dfcadf

01macOS will block it the first time

And it is right to block: this build has not been through Apple notarization yet. I am handing it out directly while the store version is prepared, and notarization replaces this step. Nothing is wrong with your Mac or with the file.

Drag the app into Applications and open it. A warning will say the app could not be verified. Then:

open System Settings → Privacy & Security;
scroll to the bottom, where it says Downloads Inbox was blocked;
click Open Anyway and confirm.

If you have used a Mac for a while you may remember right-clicking and choosing Open. Apple removed that shortcut in macOS 15, so on Sequoia and Tahoe the route really is through System Settings.

After that macOS asks permission to read your Downloads folder. That is the only permission the app uses.

02What it does, and what it will not do

It does: read your Downloads folder, group files by where they came from, and show which were never reopened and which carry names that say nothing. You can snooze, mark as handled, ignore, and move to the Trash.

It will not: rename, file things away into other folders, or touch the network. Discarding always means the system Trash, after a confirmation that lists what is about to move. Nothing is deleted for good.

Your decisions live in a file under ~/Library/Application Support/DownloadsInbox/. Deleting that folder erases the app history and affects nothing else.

03What I am hoping to learn

Three questions, most important first:

Did grouping by source hold up? The Folder report has a line called "concentration of the top 3 sources". High means grouping this way works on your folder. Low means you will see a pile of one-item groups, and that is exactly what I need to find out before writing more code.
Did it get anything wrong? A file in the wrong group, a name flagged as unhelpful when it is not, an installer called "already installed" that you never installed. Those are the reports I want most.
Would you open it again next week? An honest no is worth more than a polite yes.

If you want to send the Folder report numbers, it is the four lines on that screen. A screenshot works.

04Getting in touch

Reply wherever you got this link, or write to [email protected]. Mentioning your macOS version helps.

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