👻 Boo

A tiny macOS menu-bar ghost that eats your downloads and files them away.

Boo lives in your menu bar. When you download something it recognizes, the ghost munches it and tucks it into the right folder (Images, Archives, Documents, and so on). When it meets a file type it has never seen, it looks confused and asks you where it should go, then remembers your answer for next time.

Native Swift. No Electron, no browser bundle, no background bloat. A couple of MB.

Features

• Silent auto-sort for common file types
• Friendly popup for unknown types — remember where a type goes, or that it should stay in Downloads
• Animated ghost in the menu bar: idle, eating, confused, napping
• Toast when a file gets sorted ("Nom! Saved to Images")
• Settings window: pause, toggle toasts, manage learned rules
• "Check for Updates" opens the latest release in your browser — the app itself never touches the network
• Ignores in-progress downloads (.crdownload, .download, .part)
• Never touches your existing folders, only loose files in Downloads

The many moods of Boo

Boo pulls a different face depending on what's happening:

watching

eating

confused

napping

happy

surprised

The full set lives in Sources/Boo/Resources/Avatars.

Install

1. Download Boo.dmg and Boo.dmg.sha256 from the latest release.

2. Verify the download (recommended) — in Terminal, from your Downloads folder:

   cd ~/Downloads && shasum -a 256 -c Boo.dmg.sha256

   Expect Boo.dmg: OK. Anything else: delete the file and re-download.

3. Open the DMG and drag Boo into the Applications folder, then eject the disk image.

4. Boo is ad-hoc signed but not notarized (that needs a paid Apple Developer account), so on first launch macOS blocks it as an "unidentified developer". Approve it once: try to open Boo, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway.

   Terminal alternative, if you know what you're doing: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Boo.app

5. The ghost appears in your menu bar. To start it automatically, add Boo under System Settings → General → Login Items.

If you ever see "Boo is damaged and can't be opened", that's macOS's message for a quarantined un-notarized app — it isn't actually damaged. Use the Open Anyway flow above.

On first sort, macOS asks permission to access your Downloads folder — click OK.

Privacy & security

• Sandboxed. Boo runs in the macOS App Sandbox with a single entitlement: read/write access to your Downloads folder. It cannot touch anything else — enforced by the OS, not by promise.
• No network. There is no networking code in Boo at all. Nothing is uploaded, no analytics, no update pings — grep the source.
• No dependencies. Pure Swift and Apple frameworks; the dependency tree is empty.
• Never deletes or overwrites. Files are only moved within Downloads, and name collisions get a (1) suffix instead of replacing anything.
• Releases ship with SHA-256 checksums. To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md; the latest full audit lives in SECURITY_AUDIT.md.

Run it (dev)

Requires Xcode or the Swift toolchain.

cd Boo
swift run

The ghost appears in your menu bar. Click it for controls.

First run needs permission to your Downloads folder. Launched from Terminal, Boo inherits Terminal's file access. Built as a standalone .app (below), macOS prompts you automatically the first time it touches Downloads.

Build a standalone app

bash make-app.sh

This produces Boo.app (with its app icon) and a ready-to-share Boo.dmg installer — using only the Swift toolchain and stock macOS tools, no extra dependencies. Move the app to /Applications and add it to your Login Items to have the ghost start with your Mac.

Customize

• File-type map — Sources/Boo/Core/Categories.swift. Add or move extensions to fit how you think about your files.
• Ghost art — Sources/Boo/Resources/Avatars/*.svg. Swap the SVGs to give Boo a new look.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Built by dizzpy.