Files Magic AI user guide

1. Getting started

Install

Download Files Magic AI from the product page, open the downloaded file and drag the app into your Applications folder.

Sign in

A free 1dot.ai account is required. It lets us check your plan, and it protects our AI servers from abuse.

1. Open the app and choose Login with Apple, Login with Google or Login with Email.
2. Your browser opens the 1dot.ai sign-in page. After you sign in, the app opens again by itself. If it does not, click Open FilesMagicAI on the dashboard page.

First-run setup

After signing in, the app walks you through a short setup.

1. Two quick questions. How you found us, and which feature you want most. You can skip them.
2. Full Disk Access. Needed for System Cleaner scans, and for organizing folders outside Desktop, Documents and Downloads. Click Open System Settings, turn on Files Magic AI, then click I've Granted Access, Check Again. You can also choose Skip for now.
3. Your first folder. Choose whether to rename or organize, then pick Desktop, Documents or Downloads. Downloads is the usual place to start. You see a preview before anything changes.
4. Choose a plan. Start a trial, buy a plan, activate a license key, or click Continue with Free Plan.

2. The app at a glance

The sidebar holds everything.

Closing the window keeps Files Magic AI running, so background organizing and Magic Folders keep working. Use the folder icon in the menu bar to open the app again or to quit it.

3. AI Organize

AI Organize sorts the loose files in a folder into subfolders. It reads file names, not file contents, proposes a structure from the template you choose, and shows you exactly where every file will go before anything moves. Organizing never changes a file name.

3.1 How it works, step by step

1. Pick a folder. On Home or AI Organize, click Organize next to Desktop, Documents or Downloads, or add any folder with Add a folder. A newly added folder is watched but paused, so nothing moves until you organize it.
2. Choose what to include. Tick the files and folders to organize, and untick anything you want left alone. Unticked items are remembered as exclusions. Code projects are never organized.
3. Pick a template. Under Template for this folder, choose a template. A live preview of the folder structure appears below it, built from your most recent files. Click the pencil to rename a folder, or the bin to leave one out. Reset edits undoes your changes.
4. Preview. Click Preview Organization. You see every file and the folder it will move to, with counts at the top for files that will move, files that will stay put, and folders that will be created. To send a single file somewhere else, change its destination in the Moving to dropdown.
5. Customize, optionally. Click Customize and describe the change in your own words, for example “Sort by client, then by year” or “Put every screenshot in one Screenshots folder”. Click Update plan and the preview updates. The AI may ask a short question back if your request is unclear.
6. Organize. Click Organize Now. The result shows how many files moved, which folders were created, and anything that was skipped. Undo this organize puts every file back.

Only the top level of the folder is organized. Files already inside subfolders are left where they are. If the AI cannot tell where a file belongs, it stays where it is.

3.2 Templates

A template decides which folders the plan starts from. The AI reuses those folder names, and adds others only when your files need them. There are two kinds.

• Simple Tidy templates group files into category folders right inside your folder. No extra library folders are created.
• Magic Library templates create three folders inside your folder, described in 3.3, and keep it sorted as new files arrive.

The first four appear as chips. The rest are under More.

Your own template. Click + Custom and describe how the folder should be organized, in up to 100 words. Click Preview with this to see the plan. Your description is saved as a custom template for that folder, which you can edit later. Built-in templates are never changed.

3.3 Magic Library, Manual Library and Recents

Magic Library templates create three folders inside the folder you organize. Nothing leaves that folder.

• Magic Library. Where the AI files your loose files, sorted into topic folders.
• Manual Library. Folders you already had are moved here whole and untouched. The app never reorganizes what is inside your own folders, and it asks you to confirm before this happens.
• Recents. With auto-organize on, newly arriving files wait here before being sorted, so you can still find what you just downloaded. Files stay in Recents for up to 24 hours, or your Recents interval if that is shorter, before they are filed.

If you would rather not have these three folders, choose a Simple Tidy template such as General.

3.4 Auto-organize

Organizing a folder with a Magic Library template turns on auto-organize for it. In the background the app does two things.

1. It checks the folder for new loose files, called Main Folder Checks and daily by default, and moves them into Recents.
2. It files Recents into Magic Library, called Recents Organization.

Change both intervals in Settings, Automation, anywhere from 1 to 30 hours or days. Simple Tidy folders are never organized automatically. They are tidied only when you ask. Turn on Notify when organizing finishes in Settings to get a notification after each background run. Auto-organize is part of the paid plans.

3.5 Managing a folder from Home

Each folder on Home shows its status: Auto-organize on, Watching, Paused, Not organized yet, Paused, free plan, No access or Suggested. The … menu next to a folder offers:

• Show in Finder
• Pause Auto-organize and Resume Auto-organize
• Reorganize, covered in 3.6
• Stop Watching. The app stops watching the folder. Nothing is moved or deleted, and your files and any folders the app made stay where they are.

3.6 Folders that are already organized

Pressing Organize on an already-organized folder only looks at new loose files. Files already filed are not moved again. If there are no new files, you see a note saying the folder is already organized.

To change how the existing files are sorted, for example to move a group of files into a new Personal and Family folder, click Reorganize in that note, or in the folder's … menu on Home.

1. The app proposes a fresh plan for the files already in Magic Library.
2. Adjust it with Customize, for example “Move Vedic reports to Personal / Family”.
3. Approve it. Nothing moves before you approve, and the whole run can be undone from History, under Organized.

After a reorganize, the app offers to remove old folders that are now empty.

3.7 Organize engines

Choose the engine from the menu at the top right of the AI Organize page, or in Settings, AI Organize. The engine cannot be changed while organizing is in progress.

4. Magic Rename

Magic Rename gives unclear files clean names based on what is inside them: the text of a PDF, the cells of a spreadsheet, the words in a photo of a receipt. Scan_0043.pdf becomes 2026-03-14 Invoice Acme Studios.pdf. There are three ways to rename.

4.1 Smart Rename

1. Add files. Drag files or folders onto the window, or click Select Files or Select Folder. Use the Selection menu to pick PDFs only, images only, all or none. Up to 500 files per run.
2. Choose a template. Next to Choose Template, pick Auto, which takes the best template for each file, or a specific template.
3. Analyze. Click Analyze N Files. You can click Stop at any time.
4. Review. Each suggested name has a confidence label of HIGH, REVIEW or LOW. Confident names are ticked for you, and you can tick or untick any row. Name Format changes case, separators, date style and language for all names at once.
5. Apply. Click Rename N Files.

After a run, Revert to Original or Revert All puts names back. With Apple Intelligence the steps are shorter: files are renamed as they are read, but only when the suggested name is confident. Less certain names are held with a Rename button, so you decide. Files that cannot be read, such as videos, stay in the list marked Not supported, so you know they were skipped.

4.2 Naming templates

Make your own. Choose Add Template, or Customize a Copy of a built-in one. Build the filename from field blocks such as Date, Vendor, Amount or Reference number, and optionally add a short prompt for the AI, up to 100 words. The prompt is used only when you pick that template yourself, not with Auto.

Custom fields. Click New field to teach the AI something specific to look for, such as a project code. Give it a name, describe what to look for, and choose whether it is text, a code or a date. Up to 5 per template. Custom fields need Cloud AI or Apple Intelligence.

Name Format options:

• Case: As written, Title Case, Sentence case, lowercase, UPPERCASE
• Between fields: space, underscore, hyphen or dot
• Dates: 2026-03-01, 20260301, 01-03-2026, 03-01-2026 or 2026-03
• Language of the name: the document's own, the app's language, or one of 19 others. Needs Cloud AI or Apple Intelligence.
• Leave out my names: words you never want in a filename, such as your own name

4.3 Batch Rename

Rule-based renaming with an instant preview. No AI is used.

1. Click Choose Folder. Files at the top level of the folder are loaded.
2. Optionally start from a Quick template, such as Add a prefix, Number as 01, 02, 03, or Spaces to underscores.
3. Click Add Rule to build your own. Rules run in order and can be switched on or off:
   • Find and Replace, with optional regex and case-sensitive matching
   • Sequential Number, with format, start, step and padding
   • Add Text, at the start, the end or a position
   • Change Case: lower case, UPPER CASE, Capitalize Words
   • Remove Characters, a number of characters from the start or end
4. Check the Preview. Files whose new name would clash or be invalid are skipped and flagged.
5. Click Rename N Files.

The file extension is kept unless you turn on Rename the extension too. Undo Last Rename and Revert to Original are available afterwards.

4.4 Magic Folders

A Magic Folder names new files as they land in it.

1. Click Add Magic Folder and pick a folder.
2. Choose a naming template. Leave Monitor subfolders and Start right away on, or turn them off.
3. Click Add Magic Folder.

Confident names are applied automatically. Less certain ones wait for you under Review held files, where you can Rename them or Keep Original Names. Each Magic Folder's menu also offers Run now, Pause automation and Remove Magic Folder.

Worth knowing:

• When a Magic Folder starts, files already in it are renamed only if there are 300 or fewer.
• Folders with more than 5,000 files, your home folder and the iCloud Drive root cannot be Magic Folders.
• Magic Folders keep working while Files Magic AI is in the menu bar.

4.5 Rename engines

4.6 Supported files

• Documents: PDF, Word (doc, docx), RTF, OpenDocument (odt, ods, odp), EPUB, HTML
• Spreadsheets and slides: Excel (xls, xlsx), PowerPoint (ppt, pptx)
• Images: PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, BMP, WebP, with text read by on-device OCR
• Text: txt, md, csv, tsv, json, xml, yaml, toml, ini, conf, log

For PDFs the first pages are read, and scanned PDFs are read with OCR. Photos without text are named by date and subject, for example 2026-05-02_beach, using on-device image recognition, and photos from the same burst get the same subject. Videos and other unsupported files are listed as Not supported.

5. System Cleaner

System Cleaner finds storage you can reclaim and shows it to you before anything is removed. Click Scan now to scan every module, or open one module from the sidebar. System Cleaner scans need Full Disk Access, covered in Troubleshooting.

How removal works

• Almost everything goes to the Trash, so you can still restore it. The space is freed when the Trash is emptied.
• One exception. Xcode simulators and simulator runtimes are deleted permanently using Apple's own tool. You are told before you confirm.
• After a cleanup the app offers to empty the Trash. Emptying it also permanently removes anything else already in there.
• Removing an App Store or installer app may ask for your Mac password.

Trash reminders

When your Trash grows past a size you choose, between 1 and 10 GB and 2 GB by default, you get a notification with an Empty Trash button. You are always asked to confirm before the Trash is emptied.

6. History and undo

Open History from the bottom of the sidebar. It has three tabs.

Renames

Every rename, grouped by run, with a filter by source: Smart Rename, Batch Rules, Magic Folders or Organize Flow.

• Revert all N undoes the most recent rename of every file in a run.
• Revert to Original puts every file in a run back to the name it had before the app first renamed it, even after several renames.
• Each file also has its own Revert and Revert to Original.

If the original name is already taken, the file is restored with a number added. Rename history is kept for 30 days.

Organized

• Restorable Runs at the top lists every organize run that can still be undone, each with a Restore button that puts all of that run's files back.
• Below it is the full record of individual file moves. Click a row to show the file in Finder.

Keep the app open until a restore finishes.

Chat History

A read-only record of your past AI Organize sessions. Undo past runs from the Organized tab.

7. Cloud folders

Files Magic AI works with folders synced by iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Proton Drive, Nextcloud, Synology Drive, pCloud, Egnyte, Tresorit, MEGA and other cloud drives.

Cloud-safe mode, in Settings under Automation and on by default, makes sure the app never downloads a file that is only stored in the cloud.

• Organizing works normally. Moving a file within the same cloud drive only changes its listing, so nothing is downloaded and the move syncs to your other devices.
• Renaming names cloud-only files from their file names. To read their contents instead, click Download and Read Contents in Smart Rename. The space is freed again afterwards.
• Duplicate checks skip cloud-only files and tell you how many were skipped.

Cloud folders show a cloud badge on Home. Files that exist only on the provider's website, and are not synced to your Mac, cannot be organized.

8. Settings

Updates

The app checks for updates automatically. When one is found, an Update Available button appears in the sidebar. Click it, then Install Now. You can also click Check Now in Settings under Updates, or choose Check for Updates from the app menu.

9. Plans and account

Free plan

• AI Organize: 1 folder, up to 1,000 files at the top level of that folder. Excluded items do not count.
• Magic Rename: 25 Smart Renames in total, on any engine including Cloud AI. Only files that are actually renamed count.
• Auto-organize, Batch Rename and Magic Folders are not included.

If a folder has more than 1,000 files, you can Leave Some Out to get under the limit, or view pricing.

Paid plans

Monthly, yearly and lifetime plans unlock unlimited folders and files, auto-organize, and unlimited Magic Rename including Batch Rename and Magic Folders. See current prices and trials on the pricing section of the product page, or in the app under Upgrade.

Restore, activate or manage a plan

• Restore Subscription is on the plans page, while signed in with the email you bought with.
• Activate License takes a lifetime license key. It is checked against the email you are signed in with.
• Manage Subscription is in Settings under Account, and opens your 1dot.ai account.
• To move a lifetime license to another Mac, go to Settings, Account, Danger Zone and choose Deactivate Lifetime License, then activate it on the new Mac.

10. Privacy: what leaves your Mac

Your folders and files are never uploaded.

Requests to the Files Magic AI cloud are logged to keep the service running, and those logs are deleted automatically after 7 days. To keep everything on your Mac, turn off Allow Cloud Processing and use the on-device engines.

11. Troubleshooting

“FilesMagic can't organize [folder]”, or the folder shows No access

macOS is blocking the app from that folder. Click Open System Settings, or Open Privacy Settings in the folder's … menu, and allow Files Magic AI under Files and Folders, or under Full Disk Access for other folders.

System Cleaner asks for Full Disk Access

Open System Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Full Disk Access, turn on Files Magic AI, and return to the app.

Organize says the folder is already organized

Only new loose files are organized again. To re-sort files that are already filed, use Reorganize, covered in 3.6.

A file went to the wrong folder

Before organizing, change it in the preview's Moving to dropdown, or use Customize. After organizing, use Reorganize, restore the run from History under Organized, or move the file in Finder. The app will not move it back.

New downloads are not sorted straight away

With auto-organize on, new files wait in Recents for up to 24 hours before being filed, so you can still find them. Change the timing in Settings under Automation.

Cloud AI is not in the engine menu

Turn on Allow Cloud Processing in Settings under AI Organize.

My template or instruction was not followed

Only Cloud AI applies templates and custom instructions in full. Switch the engine to Cloud AI at the top right of the AI Organize page.

A file shows Not supported in Smart Rename

That file type cannot be read, videos for example. Rename it with Batch Rename instead.

A restore did not put back every file

Files you moved or deleted after organizing cannot be restored automatically. The app tells you how many could not be found.

12. FAQ