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Show HN: Auto rename downloads by AI and with your own naming rules (chromewebstore.google.com)
7 points by alexyuan0219 497 days ago
Hii HN!

We've built a Chrome extension called Cantrips.ai that auto generates meaningful filenames for pdf, txt, and docs downloads.

It has tailored formats for major file types like papers, books, financial reports, etc. For example, a paper is always formatted as download date - title - first author's last name - area, so the filename would be 20250208 - Attention Is All You Need - Vaswani - LLM instead of 1706.03762 from arXiv.

We are also developing a feature where users can add or adjust their file naming preferences. For example, if you like underscores and download meeting memos a lot, you can add meeting memos = interviewee's name_company_position_topic_date.

The reason to build this extension is that my desktop is buried with meaningless and odd filenames, so I often can't find which is the one I want. I have to go to that website and download it again, sometimes the repetition number amounting over (10). More importantly, I desperately want my desktop/finder to look tidy. It feels great when everything is organized, but I don't want to handle the renaming in the mid of my research (and I become a bit lazy later :<

Note that the extension hasn't supported downloads from some websites like Github due to technical complications. As a first-time dev, I just realized even a small tool can take much time... but we assume a similar preference feature can be applied to other productivity tools like folder organization or website bookmarks. Happy to get suggestions and learn if you really need such tools.

If you want to try the extension, here's the link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/cantripsai-auto-ren...

3 comments

This is really nice actually i would love to use it. I search for a tool like this long time ago. I use Whatsapp web so when i download some files from it, it can be auto renamed right based on date, its like that right?

It would be nice if you can expand the supported file such as excel or power point. Also i don't know for others, but on my machine the setting is in dark mode and the selection text is white make it the same as the background. I need to hover to it to actually read the text. Its not significance, but it would be nice if you can fix it.

It is intended that way, and the date of download can be in the front or end of the filename. However, Chrome API has been tricky to use. I am not sure if it can intercept downloads from WhatsApp Web. The extension cannot deal with downloads from some websites like Github based on our test.

Now I feel that we should've probably developed the desktop version with local AI modals and there wouldn't be as many technical problems as we can deal with renaming after the file is downloaded.

The web APIs also makes supporting images, excels or other files a bit harder. We only get blob data and have to figure out how to turn such raw data back to files, so we can feed the content to cloud AI providers.

Dark mode problem noted. And thanks very much for all the feedback.

What a great idea! I don't use Chrom(ium) so I can't speak to the execution but this is a really nice use of AI.
But…why?
Well me personally struggled with file organization a lot. I tried hard, but always the desktop somehow became a total mess, hence the extension. Some of my friends do strictly rename every file and sort them into the right folders. They feel this is quite manageable and don't really need a tool. Curious about about your way of file management.