Recursive Organization

sift organize ~/Downloads --recursive
sift organize ~/Downloads --recursive --apply

Sift organizes eligible nested directories in their own local context — it never flattens a subfolder’s files into the root’s category folders.

Given:

Downloads/
├── invoice.pdf
└── Client A/
    ├── proposal.pdf
    └── logo.png

Recursive organization produces:

Downloads/
├── Documents/
│   └── invoice.pdf
└── Client A/
    ├── Documents/
    │   └── proposal.pdf
    └── Images/
        └── logo.png

Client A/proposal.pdf becomes Client A/Documents/proposal.pdf — it is not flattened into the root’s Documents/.

A subfolder’s own .sift.toml takes over

If a subfolder has its own local .sift.toml, that config governs its own subtree entirely — strategy, rules, and unknown policy — instead of deferring to the recursion root’s policy. See Configuration Lookup.

What stops the descent

Recursive traversal never enters:

• hidden entries;
• symlinks;
• protected software projects;
• known build/dependency output directories (node_modules, target, .venv);
• Sift’s own category directories, or a custom rule’s destination — preventing re-entering a folder Sift already organized.

Strategies that don’t support recursion

audio, video, photos, and documents currently do not support --recursive — Sift refuses outright with a clear error rather than risking infinite nesting from free-text metadata values (an artist or camera name can’t be structurally distinguished from a folder that already existed for another reason). Non-recursive organize and non-recursive Watch work normally with all six strategies. See Strategies.

Related

• Watch → Recursive Watch — the same boundaries, applied continuously.