Classification
Sift’s built-in type strategy classifies files deterministically, by extension, case-insensitively. It never reads file contents to do this — that’s exclusive to the metadata strategies (audio, video, photos, documents).
Categories
Section titled “Categories”| Category | Destination | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Documents | Documents/ |
pdf, txt, md, docx, xlsx, pptx, epub |
| Images | Images/ |
jpg, png, webp, svg, heic, avif |
| Audio | Audio/ |
mp3, wav, flac, m4a, ogg, opus |
| Video | Video/ |
mp4, mov, mkv, webm, m4v |
| Archives | Archives/ |
zip, rar, 7z, tar, gz, xz |
| 3D | 3D/ |
stl, obj, 3mf, step, blend, fbx, glb |
| Code | Code/ |
js, ts, py, rs, go, dart, sh, java |
| Data | Data/ |
json, yaml, toml, csv, xml, sql, sqlite |
| Other | Other/ |
ordinary unmatched files |
| Junk | trash candidate | tmp, swp, swo (see Clean) |
An ordinary file with an unrecognized extension falls back to Other/ rather than being skipped — there’s always a safe place to put it.
What never gets classified this way
Section titled “What never gets classified this way”- Directories, symlinks, and already-protected entries are never classified into a category — they’re left as-is (or handled separately, e.g. by
sift foldersfor whole-folder moves). - A file inside a protected software project is never reached at all.
Overriding classification
Section titled “Overriding classification”Explicit rules in a .sift.toml always win over the strategy’s classification for a matching file. The strategy itself can also be changed per-directory — see Strategies for date, audio, video, photos, and documents.
Checking a specific decision
Section titled “Checking a specific decision”sift explain ~/Downloads/invoice.pdfshows exactly which category (or rule) applied, and why. See Explainability.