Stability Window

A filesystem event does not mean a file has finished arriving. Browsers, sync tools, and other applications may keep writing to a file for several seconds after it first appears. Sift waits for a stability window before treating a new file as a real candidate to organize.

Default

2.5 seconds unchanged

Overriding it

[watch]
stability_seconds = 3

Accepted values are 1 through 300 seconds. See .sift.toml.

Transient download names are ignored while temporary

These suffixes are recognized as in-progress downloads and never treated as stable candidates while present:

.crdownload
.part
.download
.tmp

Once the browser or tool renames the file to its final name, normal stability tracking applies from that point.

Related

• Lifecycle Guarantees — how stability interacts with pause/resume (a file mid-window when paused is discarded, not queued).