DropIt for Windows

Have you ever wished you had a desktop icon that would do whatever you want it to when you want it to? Like saving different files to different folders based on their name or file type? Or creating custom associations that do everything from rename files to run scripts? And enabling multiple profiles? And is widely customizable, on top of it all? Well, DropIt. No, we're not telling you to give up the quest: we're recommending DropIt, a free, open-source desktop app that does all of the above and more.

We like simple user interfaces, but DropIt takes it to the limit: it's a single icon, a downward-pointing arrow on a blue aero background. You can drag it anywhere on the desktop, stick it there, enable always-on-top, hide it, and so on; it's a versatile little tool in many ways. Right-clicking the icon opens a menu accessing DropIt's Associations, Profiles, and Options as well as Hide, Help, and Exit commands. The PDF-based Help file goes to 11 (pages, that is) while the About file includes an Update button. We opened the association manager, a gridded dialog displaying Name, Rules, Action, and Destination. We clicked New, named our new association, and added our rules. DropIt provides examples, such as *.jpg, which affects all files with the extension .jpg, covering most image files. We selected our Action from a drop-down list offering choices like Move, Compress, Rename, and Ignore, and our destination directory. We could also apply additional filters for items such as Size and Date Modified, Created, and Opened. A nice extra let us configure Internal Environmental Variables for File, Date, Music, and Other selections such as desktop path, document path, and portable drive letter. We could create as many associations as we needed and select them from the menu. It was the same with Profiles--as many as needed. Under Options we could configure everything from startup behavior to compression options, set folders to monitor, create HTML lists, manage duplicates, and much more.

It seems possible to configure DropIt for virtually any task you need it to perform from the desktop. It's great to be able to drag and drop things into it without a thought and then find them where they're supposed to be when we go and look. Impressive? Definitely. Essential? Possibly. Totally cool? Absolutely.