How to add one
- Open Settings from the menu-bar icon, then the Tray pane.
- Under watched folders, choose Add Folder… and pick one. Choosing it is what grants access to it — Tray cannot read a folder you have not handed over.
- Set how many of its newest files to offer, or offer the folder whole.
Watching more than one folder, and offering a folder whole, are Pro. One folder is free and is watched already.
Six worth watching
Downloads
Everyone. The one that is watched out of the box. Things arrive here from the browser and are wanted a few minutes later somewhere else, which is the whole shape of the problem.
Watched already. Nothing to do.
Where screenshots go
Anyone who takes a lot of them. A screenshot is used once, almost immediately, and then never again. Having the last few on the shelf means dragging one into a message without hunting for the file whose name is a timestamp.
Point it at the folder set in the screenshot tool — the Desktop unless you changed it.
An export or render folder
Designers, editors, 3D. Exports land in a folder you then have to go and open. Watched, the newest ones are already on the arc while the next render is still going.
Add the folder your app exports to.
The current project
Anyone with one live job. A project folder is the opposite of Downloads: the same files, wanted repeatedly, over weeks. Watching it keeps the handful that changed most recently within reach.
Add it, and move the watch when the project changes.
A scanner or camera import folder
Anyone importing in batches. Imports arrive as a run of files with names that tell you nothing. Seeing them as pictures on the shelf is faster than reading IMG_1084 in a list.
Add the folder the import tool writes to.
A shared or sync folder
Anyone working with someone else. Files appear in a sync folder without you doing anything, which is exactly when you want to be shown rather than to go and look.
Add the local folder the sync client keeps.
What watching does not do
It does not copy anything, index anything, or send anything anywhere. A watched folder is read when the shelf opens — it is a directory listing, not a background process — and the files stay exactly where they are. Taking one off the shelf forgets the card and leaves the file alone.
A file shown from a watched folder is temporary by nature: it is on the shelf because it is recent, and it leaves when it stops being. To keep one, pin it. To put several somewhere permanent, gather them and use Put in a Folder….