Your Google Drive is a mess. Don't lie.
Downloads folder. Desktop. Shared drives. Inbox attachments saved without thinking. After a year of casual saving, you've got PDFs next to vacation photos next to invoices next to half-finished presentations â and nothing is findable.
The fix isn't a "digital declutter weekend." That takes hours and you'll slide back in two weeks. The fix is an automation that runs forever and silently keeps everything sorted for you.
Here's a 4-node n8n workflow that watches a Google Drive folder and automatically moves every new file into the right sub-folder â PDFs, Images, Spreadsheets, Documents, Presentations, Videos â with a date prefix so files sort chronologically without renaming anything manually.
What the workflow does #
Node 1 â Google Drive Trigger: watch a folder
Polls a specific Google Drive folder every minute for new files. The moment a file lands in your "Inbox" folder (your drop zone), the workflow fires.
Node 2 â Code node: classify by type + generate new name
Looks at the file's MIME type and filename extension:
application/pdf
or.pdf
âPDFs -
image/*
or.jpg/.jpeg/.png/.gif/.svg/.webp
âImages -
spreadsheet
MIME or.xlsx/.xls/.csv
âSpreadsheets -
document
MIME or.doc/.docx/.txt/.md
âDocuments -
presentation
MIME or.ppt/.pptx
âPresentations -
video/*
or.mp4/.mov/.avi
âVideos - Everything else â Other
Also prepends today's date: 2026-05-22_invoice-client.pdf
. Every folder sorts automatically from oldest to newest â no manual date-tagging ever.
Node 3 â Google Drive: move to folder
Moves the file from the Inbox folder into the classified sub-folder. Two-second operation. The original file is gone from your drop zone, organized where it belongs.
Node 4 â Google Sheets: log the action
Appends a row to a FileLog sheet: fileId
, fileName
, targetFolder
, newName
. Full audit trail: every file ever sorted, when it was sorted, where it went.
Setup (5 minutes) #
Create the folder structure in Google Drive:-
Inbox/
(your drop zone) Files/PDFs/
Files/Images/
Files/Spreadsheets/
Files/Documents/
Files/Presentations/
Files/Videos/
Files/Other/
Import the JSON into n8n (New Workflow â Import from clipboard)Connect your Google account in the Drive Trigger, Drive, and Sheets nodes (one OAuth connection covers all three)Set your folder IDs in Node 1 (Inbox folder ID) and Node 3 (target folder IDs â one per category). Get folder IDs from the URL when you open a folder in Drive:drive.google.com/drive/folders/FOLDER_ID_HERE
Create a Google Sheet calledFileLog
and set its ID in Node 4Activate the workflow â it now runs forever
From now on: drop anything into Inbox, it's organized in under 60 seconds.
Full workflow JSON #
{
"name": "File Organizer",
"nodes": [
{
"parameters": {
"pollTimes": {"item": [{"mode": "everyMinute"}]},
"triggerOn": "specificFolder",
"folderToWatch": {"__rl": true, "value": "YOUR_INBOX_FOLDER_ID", "mode": "id"}
},
"id": "fo1", "name": "Watch Google Drive",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.googleDriveTrigger", "typeVersion": 1, "position": [240, 300]
},
{
"parameters": {
"jsCode": "const file = $input.first().json;\nconst name = file.name || '';\nconst mime = file.mimeType || '';\nlet folder = 'Other';\nif (mime.includes('pdf') || name.endsWith('.pdf')) folder = 'PDFs';\nelse if (mime.includes('image') || /\\.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|svg|webp)$/i.test(name)) folder = 'Images';\nelse if (mime.includes('spreadsheet') || /\\.(xlsx|xls|csv)$/i.test(name)) folder = 'Spreadsheets';\nelse if (mime.includes('document') || /\\.(doc|docx|txt|md)$/i.test(name)) folder = 'Documents';\nelse if (mime.includes('presentation') || /\\.(ppt|pptx)$/i.test(name)) folder = 'Presentations';\nelse if (mime.includes('video') || /\\.(mp4|mov|avi)$/i.test(name)) folder = 'Videos';\nconst datePrefix = new Date().toISOString().split('T')[0];\nreturn [{ json: { fileId: file.id, fileName: name, targetFolder: folder, newName: datePrefix + '_' + name } }];"
},
"id": "fo2", "name": "Classify File Type",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.code", "typeVersion": 2, "position": [480, 300]
},
{
"parameters": {
"operation": "move",
"fileId": "={{ $json.fileId }}",
"folderId": "={{ $json.targetFolder }}"
},
"id": "fo3", "name": "Move to Folder",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.googleDrive", "typeVersion": 3, "position": [720, 200]
},
{
"parameters": {
"operation": "append",
"documentId": {"__rl": true, "value": "YOUR_SHEET_ID", "mode": "id"},
"sheetName": {"__rl": true, "value": "FileLog", "mode": "name"},
"columns": {"mappingMode": "autoMapInputData"}
},
"id": "fo4", "name": "Log Action",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.googleSheets", "typeVersion": 4.5, "position": [720, 400]
}
],
"connections": {
"Watch Google Drive": {"main": [[{"node": "Classify File Type", "type": "main", "index": 0}]]},
"Classify File Type": {"main": [[{"node": "Move to Folder", "type": "main", "index": 0}, {"node": "Log Action", "type": "main", "index": 0}]]}
},
"settings": {"executionOrder": "v1"},
"tags": [{"name": "file-management"}]
}
Customizations #
Add more file types
The Code node's classification logic is just a series of if/else
statements. Add a line like:
else if (/\.(zip|tar|gz)$/i.test(name)) folder = 'Archives';
for ZIP files, audio files, code files â whatever categories you need.
Use it as a shared team inbox
Share the Inbox folder with your team. Now anyone on the team can drop files and they'll auto-sort into the right place. Works great for shared client deliverables, design assets, or contract PDFs.
Add Slack notification
Append a Slack node after Node 3:
"â
{{$json.fileName}} â {{$json.targetFolder}}"
Great for team awareness when important files arrive.
Email attachment auto-saver
Pair this workflow with an n8n Gmail trigger that saves all attachments to the Inbox folder. Now every email attachment is automatically sorted by type and logged â your inbox clutter permanently solved.
Add AI-based naming
Replace the date prefix logic in the Code node with a call to the OpenAI or Claude API to generate a clean descriptive filename based on file content (for text-readable files). More complex but powerful for documents with generic names like scan001.pdf
.
Why this compounds #
Unlike a "clean up your files" session that you'll undo in a month, this workflow runs silently forever. The longer it runs, the better your files are organized. Set it up once in 5 minutes, and your Drive is permanently sorted.
The audit log in Sheets also means you can easily answer: where did that file go? Search by filename, filter by date, done.
Get the full automation bundle #
This workflow is part of our 15-template n8n automation bundle â each one covering a different business use case: lead capture, invoice generation, AI customer support, social media automation, price monitoring, and more.
Grab the full bundle at stripeai.gumroad.com â pre-tested, documented, ready to activate.
Built with n8n. Self-hostable, open source, no vendor lock-in.