Another Great Entry

3 Steps to Clean Up Your Desktop

I’ll share a secret with you: I hate an untidy desktop. It makes searching for things harder, and also feels more cramped and stressed. So, keeping it tidy will obviously boost your productivity. Here are 3 quick steps you can take to keep your desktop clutter-free.

First of all, how often do you access your drives from the desktop? Chances are you do it all through Finder in the Dock. Go to Finder’s preferences, select the General tab and under “Show these items on the Desktop”, uncheck Hard disks, CDs, DVDs and iPods. This will likely get rid of several unneeded icons.

Once you’ve cleaned that up, all that remains are your miscellaneous files (and applications). What I’ve done is created a “temp” folder and moved everything into it. This temporary folder holds any random files and downloads waiting to be processed. I call my folder “The Bin”. Create a shortcut in Finder’s side pane to allow for quicker access.

The Bin

Now that your desktop is clean, don’t let anything accumulate on it. How do you do this? You can set your default download paths in Firefox, Safari and Opera. Create shortcuts or favourites in your applications to allow for quick access to your temporary folder. Follow this last step and your desktop should remain completely clean.

Do you like working with a clean desktop? Let me know. Here’s a screenshot of my desktop.

Marvin’s Desktop

5 Thoughts
    • macintalk
    • Apr 28, 2007

    • That’s a bad idea. Junk will accumulate in the temp folder and soon you’ll have a multi-gigabyte folder on your hands. I keep a temp folder as well and it now has about 250 items in it, down from 2,000 that I had to hand-sort. It’s better to file stuff into their appropriate folders.

    • Joe Jacobs
    • Apr 29, 2007

    • Sorry macintalk, but I disagree. I currently use the exact same method, and it’s great. I’ve tried tons of other methods, but frankly, it seems to be the best.

      See for me, I can’t stand stuff on my desktop. So if I’m busy and I want to clean it, I just throw it in my “dropbox,” and file it later. What your describing is simply laziness. Sure, you should file them, as I do, but a mutli gig folder? I don’t think so.

      Here is my desktop, if you’d like to see it.

    • Marvin Sum
    • Apr 29, 2007

    • @macintalk: The temp folder is to let me store my downloads and the odd pdf quickly. Once I have the time, I’ll file it away, so it doesn’t accumulate.

      @Joe Jacobs: Love the wallpaper, what’s with the eyes though? By the way, you’ve got a nice blog.

    • Joe Jacobs
    • Apr 30, 2007

    • @Marvin: Yeah, the desktop is probably my favorite Halo related one ever. You can get it here. As for the eyes, those are Cortana’s. In Halo 2, Cortana and Master Chief split up, Cheif going to Earth to battle the Covenant, while Cortana stayed backed where Gravemind (the Flood leader) is. At the time Cortana was integrated into Graveminds system and is corrupt. Cortana was a huge part of Cheif’s life, so it’s supposed to have that emotional effect.

      And thanks for the compliment on my blog!

    • Glenn Wolsey
    • May 02, 2007

    • Instead of using a “Junk” storage folder on my desktop, I file everything straight away. It saves ounces of time in the long run.

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