I spent $50 on a file organizing app and it actually made things worse

Honestly, I thought buying Sortly Pro would be the answer to my digital clutter problem. I spent $50 on it last month thinking it would magically organize all my downloaded PDFs and random screenshots. Instead, it duplicated over 200 files and left me with a bigger mess than when I started. Tbh, I spent more time fixing the duplicates than I would have just manually sorting things into folders myself. Ngl, I regret not trying the free version first because now I'm out $50 and back to square one. Has anyone else had a paid app burn you like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesleyflores13d ago

Isn't it possible the app just exposed how badly you already had things organized?

iris_schmidt14d agoTop Commenter

That "instead it duplicated over 200 files" part hit home for me. I tried a similar app called FileFlow and it just rearranged everything into weird categories I never asked for. What actually worked was just making three folders on my desktop called "Keep", "Maybe", and "Delete" and spending 10 minutes a day sorting stuff into them. No app can beat the simple drag and drop approach in my experience.

fionafoster13d ago

36 folders deep in FileFlow and I still couldn't find my tax documents from last year. @iris_schmidt the three folder method is genius honestly. I tried something similar with colored labels on my Mac but ended up with 20 different colors and still lost everything. The drag and drop thing really is unbeatable for me too. I think we overcomplicate organization when our brains just need simple buckets.