Back in the day I used to load my helpers.php file through composers files array. That would still work absolutely fine, however I decided to move them in to the app directory and auto-load them with a service provider to take a more organizational approach.

This way I can organize my helpers by file name, and when I place them in my pre-configured directory I have global availability to the methods inside them.

So the first step is to create a new service provider called HelperServiceProvider:

<?php

namespace App\Providers;

use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
use RecursiveDirectoryIterator;
use RecursiveIteratorIterator;

class HelperServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    /**
     * Register bindings in the container.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function boot(): void
    {
        $rdi = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator(app_path('Helpers'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'Global'));
        $it = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($rdi);

        while ($it->valid()) {
            if (
                ! $it->isDot() &&
                $it->isFile() &&
                $it->isReadable() &&
                $it->current()->getExtension() === 'php' &&
                strpos($it->current()->getFilename(), 'Helper')
            ) {
                require $it->key();
            }

            $it->next();
        }
    }
}

Then create the directory which you have specified, in my case app/Helpers/Global.

Now any file I place in app/Helpers/Global will be auto-loaded for me, and will consist of specifically one-off functions, and not classes. Classes I would place in app/Helpers/XXXX depending on the category. These would not be auto-loaded but are still good to have all in one place.

From there you want to load your new service provider in your app.php service providers array:

/*
 * Application Service Providers...
 */
App\Providers\AppServiceProvider::class,
...
App\Providers\HelperServiceProvider::class,
...

Finally, create your first helper file:

For example, I usually create a GeneralHelper for things I can't find another category for:

app/Helpers/Global/GeneralHelper.php

<?php

use Carbon\Carbon;

if (! function_exists('appName')) {
    /**
     * Helper to grab the application name.
     *
     * @return mixed
     */
    function appName()
    {
        return config('app.name');
    }
}

if (! function_exists('carbon')) {
    /**
     * Create a new Carbon instance from a time.
     *
     * @param $time
     *
     * @return Carbon
     * @throws Exception
     */
    function carbon($time)
    {
        return new Carbon($time);
    }
}

From this file I have access to appName() and carbon() from anywhere without having to load any classes:

I definitely use this approach sparingly as I don't want to have too much extra overhead. However, I've had projects with dozens and have yet to notice a difference even on a $5 droplet.