Does clearing the desktop make a Mac faster?

[skaloola]

an old thread, but was curious if someone else had run into this and noticed none of the replies were helpful.

just fyi, the multiple reports on here that a full desktop does not slow your system down are false. I had an app saving files (for w/e reason, by default, to the Desktop).. my laptop seemed to have been particularly slow lately, lots of random freezes/beachballing. It happened so gradually it was hard to notice. I tried cleaning up disk space, upgrading my OS, all kinds of stuff.. thought it must be my stupid Corporate antivirus (sophos) but then I remembered my cluttered desktop


I had 8000 1kb .txt files in ~/Desktop, moved them into (actually, had to whip up some python to do it as mv was giving errors and finder didn't like selecting that many files) ~/Desktop/bak and almost instantly my laptop no longer felt like I was wading through mud.



Saw issue on both mojave and Catalina

Sorry for thread resurrection, had to do it

 

[DeltaMac]

The rest of this thread is asking about a few dozen files, cluttering up the desktop. Years ago, that could be a problem, even with only a few dozen files. The consensus seems to be that a few files would not cause any perceptible slowdown. "8000 1kb .txt files", loose on your desktop, is a whole other level...
And, your over-the-top, anecdotal experience doesn't make the other reports "false".
A more normal amount of files left on the desktop is still unlikely to noticeably affect the performance of your Mac.

But, 8 thousand? - I hope you have discovered how to have your software save those small files to a folder (not the Desktop folder )

 

[skaloola]

Fair enough, and I think saying every existing answer as "false" was a little aggressive of me. 🙇‍♂️ I guess I didn't read it as a few dozen files, my feeling was that the Desktop is just another directory and the number of files there shouldn't cause any problems however "over the top" the quantity is.

Perhaps some day I'll be bored/curious enough to experiment to see when the slowdowns became noticeable / beyond just intermittent. Until then I wouldn't be surprised if a number around ~500 would cause some issues. Especially if someone's running a more modestly specced machine. (I'm lucky enough to have a 16" mbp with an i9, 64gb ram)

As this was the first hit I got when searching, I figured adding this info might just help someone in the future.

And, haha, yes I did change the setting .

 

[LarryJoe33]

I can’t believe we are talking about this with today’s powerful CPUs and 8GB to 16GB of memory. If a cluttered desktop is slowing your machine down by an actual measurable amount, you have other issues.

 

[hwojtek]

I can’t believe we are talking about this with today’s powerful CPUs and 8GB to 16GB of memory. If a cluttered desktop is slowing your machine down by an actual measurable amount, you have other issues.

Creating preview icons for hundreds or even thousands of files cluttering the desktop is in fact slowing the Finder down.

 

[charlituna]

Creating preview icons for hundreds or even thousands of files cluttering the desktop is in fact slowing the Finder down.

right. that's just logic. Finder has to make icons for 1000s of files it's going to need a bunch of RAM, that will slow down your machine. maybe on the latest models you won't notice it until you have like 3.5TB of files on your desktop but it will happen. So don't get in the habit of using your desktop as your storage. If you are working on a certain project okay, put them in a folder on the Desktop and when you're done, move it to Documents etc.

 

[AlexisV]

Bump.

I'm on Monterey and the fans can be going and the entire machine slows down if I have a 100 or 200 files on the desktop. Delete and it gets back up to speed.

 

[DeltaMac]

"bump"?
So, you know that keeping your desktop clear will help you...
(I bet that you have more than "100 or 200" files on your desktop.)
One quick and easy solution is to make a folder, where you can store your problem files. You can keep that folder on your desktop.