Every week, important files come to you by email. Invoices, receipts, bank statements, contracts. Most of them have useless names like Invoice.pdf or scan001.pdf. To keep them organized, you have to download each one, open it, rename it, and move it to the right folder. Do that for every attachment, every week, and it adds up.
Here's a simpler way. You connect your email once. After that, every new attachment is saved to your computer automatically, given a clear name based on what's inside, and put in the right folder. You don't have to do anything.
This guide shows you how to set that up with the Watch Inbox feature in FilesDesk.
Quick answer
Watch Inbox connects to your mailbox over IMAP with read-only access. When an email with an attachment arrives, FilesDesk saves the file, reads what's in it, renames it using details like date, vendor, and amount, and moves it into a folder you choose. Your emails stay exactly where they were.
How it works
- Watches your mailbox for new attachments. Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, or any IMAP account.
- Saves the attachment to your computer.
- Reads the file. Scanned PDFs and photos go through text recognition, so a phone picture of a receipt works too.
- Renames it with AI or with a naming template you've set up.
-
Files it into the right folder, like
Invoices/2026.
Access is read-only. Nothing in your mailbox gets moved or deleted.
Before and after
| What arrived | What you get | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
Invoice.pdf |
2026-09-21_Adobe_$54.99.pdf |
Invoices/2026 |
receipt.jpg |
2026-09-20_Uber_$18.40.jpg |
Receipts/2026 |
Statement.pdf |
2026-10-01_BankOfAmerica_Statement.pdf |
Bank Statements/2026 |
The date goes first in ISO format so files sort in date order in Finder or Explorer. Small detail, but it's why you'll actually find things six months from now.
Two ways to name files
Smart Rename. The AI reads the document and pulls out the vendor, date, amount, and document type. Best when your attachments are a mixed bag.
Templates. A fixed pattern with placeholders:
{date}_{vendor}_{amount}
Every file comes out in the same structure. You don't have to write the pattern yourself either. Describe it in plain English and FilesDesk builds the template:
Create an invoice template using date, vendor, and amount separated by underscores
For bookkeeping or accounting work, templates usually win. Consistency matters more than clever names when someone has to reconcile 300 files at month end.
Pair it with Watch Folders
Email isn't the only place files come from. Watch Folders does the same job for any folder on your machine: Downloads, your scanner's output folder, a synced cloud folder.
Run both and every file follows the same naming rules no matter where it came from. Every change is logged in History and can be undone, which helps a lot during the first week while you're still tuning your rules.
Where the AI runs
Invoices and bank statements are exactly the kind of files you shouldn't send to just any server. So you get three options:
- Managed AI. Works out of the box and uses credits.
- Bring your own key. OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, or OpenRouter. You pay the provider directly and your files only go to them. Keys are stored in macOS Keychain or Windows Credential Manager.
- Local AI. Ollama or LM Studio. Reading, text recognition, and naming all happen on your machine. No internet connection, no AI bill, nothing leaves your computer.
If you already run Ollama for other projects, the local option is the natural fit for financial documents.
Getting started
FilesDesk runs on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows 10/11. The free tier comes with 15 AI credits and no card required, which is enough to connect your inbox and see how your own attachments come out.
If your inbox is where invoices go to become Invoice (7).pdf, give it a try at filesdesk.app.
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