Categories and folders
Ladle saves to Downloads › Ladle and sorts each file into a folder for its type. Here’s where everything goes, and how to change it.
- 2 min read
- Updated October 2026
Where files go
Section titled “Where files go”Ladle saves downloads to ~/Downloads/Ladle. With Sort into category folders on, which it is out of the box, each file goes into a subfolder for its type:
| Folder | File types |
|---|---|
| Video | mp4, mov, mkv, webm, avi, m4v, ts |
| Music | mp3, flac, wav, m4a, aac, ogg |
| Documents | pdf, epub, doc, docx, txt, pages, key, xlsx, csv |
| Archives | zip, rar, 7z, tar, gz, tgz, bz2, xz |
| Apps | dmg, pkg, iso, app |
| Images | png, jpg, jpeg, heic, webp, gif, svg, tiff |
Anything else goes straight into the Ladle folder itself.
The same categories appear in Ladle’s sidebar, so you can show just your videos, or just your apps.
Change the folder
Section titled “Change the folder”Open Ladle › Settings › Downloads:
- Save downloads to picks the base folder. The category folders are made inside it.
- Turn off Sort into category folders to save everything into the base folder.
To save a single download somewhere else, choose a different folder next to Save to in the Add sheet, or click Change in the panel that appears when Ladle catches a download from your browser.
While a file is downloading
Section titled “While a file is downloading”Ladle writes the file directly into its folder as name.ladle-part, where name is the file’s real name, and Finder shows the progress on its icon. When the download completes, Ladle renames it to its real name.
Leave the .ladle-part file where it is until then: it holds the progress Ladle uses to resume.
When a download finishes
Section titled “When a download finishes”Choose what happens with When a download finishes in Ladle › Settings › Downloads:
- Just notify me sends a notification with Open and Show in Finder buttons. This is the default.
- Open the file opens it in its usual app.
- Show in Finder opens a Finder window with the file selected.
To find a file later, select it in Ladle and press ⇧⌘R to show it in Finder, or ⌘O to open it.
Related settings
Section titled “Related settings”- Duplicate file names: what happens when a file with the same name is already there.
- Checksums: how Ladle checks a file arrived intact.