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:

 1<?php
 2 
 3namespace App\Providers;
 4 
 5use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
 6use RecursiveDirectoryIterator;
 7use RecursiveIteratorIterator;
 8 
 9class HelperServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
10{
11    /**
12     * Register bindings in the container.
13     *
14     * @return void
15     */
16    public function boot(): void
17    {
18        $rdi = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator(app_path('Helpers'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'Global'));
19        $it = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($rdi);
20 
21        while ($it->valid()) {
22            if (
23                ! $it->isDot() &&
24                $it->isFile() &&
25                $it->isReadable() &&
26                $it->current()->getExtension() === 'php' &&
27                strpos($it->current()->getFilename(), 'Helper')
28            ) {
29                require $it->key();
30            }
31 
32            $it->next();
33        }
34    }
35}

#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:

1/*
2 * Application Service Providers...
3 */
4App\Providers\AppServiceProvider::class,
5...
6App\Providers\HelperServiceProvider::class,
7...

#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

 1<?php
 2 
 3use Carbon\Carbon;
 4 
 5if (! function_exists('appName')) {
 6    /**
 7     * Helper to grab the application name.
 8     *
 9     * @return mixed
10     */
11    function appName()
12    {
13        return config('app.name');
14    }
15}
16 
17if (! function_exists('carbon')) {
18    /**
19     * Create a new Carbon instance from a time.
20     *
21     * @param $time
22     *
23     * @return Carbon
24     * @throws Exception
25     */
26    function carbon($time)
27    {
28        return new Carbon($time);
29    }
30}

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.