If there’s one thing I dislike, it’s clutter.

Once in a while, I like to do a purge of my downloaded files and things on my Desktop. What I kept finding, however, is that I was unsure about whether I needed certain files after even just a few weeks. This would lead to me putting them somewhere (hopefully) temporary labeled “delete_me” or something similar. Then, when I’d happen upon the folder later on, I still wasn’t quite sure about whether it was okay to delete the folder.

So I thought about using Finder’s Tags so I could label things that were OK to delete. It wasn’t much of a leap from there to see if I could use a cron script to delete the files for me after a time of my choosing, and sure enough — it worked!

Of course, I had to be my own guinea pig, because I didn’t want to risk deleting someone’s important files but knowing I back up my most important files, I wasn’t too worried.

Months later, I’m still using this process routinely, so I decided to put it online in case anyone out there has a similar need.

You can check it out here: OS X Self Destruct

No, I don’t mean OS X will self destruct. I just like the idea of a message that will destroy itself at a time of your choosing like on Inspector Gadget.