Old Newbie Help with Desktop settings

[RetiredInFl]

Maybe tl;dr but here goes anyway:

At 75 yrs old I have been a PC person since the early (19)80's both hobby and semi-professionally but have always had iPhones & iPads and Apple Watch, just not a MAC. Last week I picked up a 2012 Mac Mini i7Quad for next to nothing ($70 ), added 16GB and a 500Gig SSD installed latest Ventura and really like the new experience but there are a few frustrating basic simple things I can't find an answer to that is driving my crazy coming from the PC world.

I like to keep a bunch of shortcut icons on the desktop which was simple to do but I can't figure out the following:

#1) Can't change icon description's FONT OR COLOR and #2) the way the descriptions are displayed.

Re. #2. The descriptions all have drop shadows, are white and barely readable for me. There must be a way to change the color of that text as well as font. I am able to increase the SIZE of the icons, spacing and all that stuff just not deal with the text font or color.

On the same idea the way the icon (and folder) font descriptions are showing makes it nearly impossible to see what they are.

For example: The folder that I have called DOCUMENTS shows as DO...ents. I know what that one is but barely any of the others are decipherable. I would rather it read Documen... than Do...ents.

Can't find any options for this under display or desktop or accessibility. Is there some way (or app) to modify these things I am describing?

Thank you (hopefully) for any help anyone can provide. I know I must be missing something simple.

Happy Holidays!
Ed

 

[MacGizmo]

#1 You can't change the font or color of file/folder names in macOS
#2 You can't alter the display of the file/folder names, it is handled automatically by the OS.

Regarding how much of the file/folder names appear, you can adjust that by doing the following:

1. Click on the desktop (make sure it's the Desktop and not a folder)
2. Go to the menubar and select View>Show View Options (or just hit Command + J)
3. Adjust the Grid Spacing to your liking. More spacing means more of the file/folder names gets displayed.

Adjust any other items in that little View Options dialog box while you're there (icon size, label text size, whether the label and item info appear on the right or below the icon, etc.).

 

[RetiredInFl]

@MacGizmo​

Hey thanks! That helped a lot. REALLY surprised though to read that font or color can't be changed. LOL, you'd think that would be an "Apple Thing". It's so "basic." Maybe "There's an app for that."

 

[MacGizmo]

Glad to help!

The solution to the white text labels is of course to use a darker wallpaper. I know that's not the solution you want to hear, but it's the only one that's not going to send you down a rabbit hole of despair.

You can do all sorts of hackery to the System, but the amount of work it takes, the security risks, and the risk of completely bricking your computer just isn't worth it, in my opinion. There used to be apps that did this sort of thing to the system quite easily, but Apple has locked the system down over the years (in the name of security) to the point where many developers just gave up.

 

[BrianBaughn]

If you add a "tag" to you file/folder a color dot will show before the name:

Use tags to organise files on Mac

In the Finder on your Mac, tag files and folders with colour or text to make them easier to find, group and sort.

support.apple.com

 

[bigfatipod]

2012 mini with Ventura? Does that really work well enough to use? (Asking because I have the same machine)