As part of my normal routine, I keep a folder on my Mac desktop that I fill up with items I don’t plan on keeping around for very long. Images used to compose designs, URL shortcuts, bits of text, PDFs, etc. This keeps my Desktop itself clean and tidy. But sometimes I forget to empty those items. So I created a tool that I use myself. Its called Temp Items for now (local).
It may need another application title once I release it to the Mac OS App Store – if I do. It does everything I need it to. It doesn’t appear in the Dock, just in the Mac OS menu bar. When empty, its icon shows an empty tray. When there are items in the Temp Items folder on the desktop – it shows an icon of a tray with items in it and the count of folders and files.
You create the folder yourself. If you don’t have one already, it will prompt you to make one. You’ll also need to give the application full-disk access. But it only accesses the Temp Items folder. It’s safe.
It also allows you to MOVE items to the Trash – it will not delete anything on its own. You can move individual items, you can quicklook them one by one or all, select the to show them in the Temp Items folder, see the type, see a preview of the file as an image, see the size, the total size of all items, etc.
Very useful if it did only that. But if you leave it running, you can set a schedule for it to automatically move the items to the Trash for you.
It’s a small and targeted use case app. I know that. But for what it does, it’s very efficient and easy to use. If you have a workflow similar to mine, you might find this tool great for you as well. It hidden away in your menu bar, isn’t destructive, and so far I have squashed all the bugs I’ve found while using it myself day to day.
Collecting images for posts, mood boards, projects, icon references, fonts, URLs, video media, etcetera are all fair game. This just streamlines their removal from your system when you don’t need them or schedule to do so when you can’t be bothered to remember.
I hope to release this soon, its basically complete for a 1.0 release, I would just need to go through all the steps in App Store Connect to get it out there.