The Best Way To Cleanup Your Mac Desktop

When I’m out on Mac support, I often see desktops buried under hundreds of files. One person managed to do this with thousands of files . . an accomplishment that deserves some kind of award.

Does It Matter?

Yes. If your desktop is cluttered it slows down your Mac

Why Does Everyone Save To The Desktop?

My guess is . . . It feels safe. You can almost reach out and touch the Desktop. If you put files there you’ll definitely be able to find them later. Saving any other place on the Mac feels like dropping files down a well.

The Quick Cleanup

The quick cleanup is called ‘Stacks’.

It’s easy to turn on and off. Turning it off will return the desktop to the original way you had it laid out.

To turn it on – Right-click or Control-click the desktop and select ‘Choose Stacks’ from the popup menu. Your files are instantly organized, based on file type, into stacks of what look a lot like playing cards.

Click a stack and it pops open to show you the files within.

To turn it off – Right-click or Control-click the desktop and select “Choose Stacks” from the popup menu and the checkmark will disappear.

Stacks are automatically organized by ‘Kind’, but they can also be grouped by ‘Date Last Opened’, ‘Date Added’, ‘Date Modified’, ‘Date Created’ or ‘Tags’. To change grouping – Right-click or Control-click the desktop, select ‘Group Stacks By’ and choose an option.

That’s it. Have an excellent week.

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