School Me: How do you Organize your Desktop?

[ElPaso]

I've had my MBN for a little over a month now, so I'm still pretty new with MacBooks and macOS. I feel comfortable working off of the desktop, because that's my comfort zone from when I had Windows PCs. But "Tips" is telling me that it's best to work off of Finder. How do you experienced folks stage your work environment on your MacBooks? Here's my desktop.

I will comment that all of my spreadsheet work (which is substantial) and a good percentage of word processing is done on Google Drive which is available through Chrome.

 

[avkills]

I try to keep pretty much nothing on the desktop. But I do use the desktop as a conduit for renders and exports; then I just move them where I want them eventually.

Sometimes for a lot of media exports I will make a folder for them all; then they eventually get moved to dropbox and/or uploaded to Vimeo or something similar depending on the client.

 

[maflynn]

Its all personal preference. There is no right or wrong way to setup your computer.
You like putting thigns on your desktop, great. Many folks like to avoid that and keep a clean desktop. I'm largely that person, at least for MacOS. For windows I tend to put a lot of stuff on my desktop - go figure. I guess that highlights the personal preference aspect I mentioned

 

[ignatius345]

I just let stuff pile up on my desktop. Eventually I get fed up and throw all the files into a folder called “Desktop stuff” or something. Then I repeat the process and make another folder like 6 months later. It’s pure chaos and I do not recommend it.

I will say, I’ve started getting a little more diligent about adding tags to files and folders and that’s actually made a big difference in being able to keep a handle on stuff.

 

[Sippincider]

Mine is an utter disaster with stuff going back years. No I do not recommend it. 🤪

Now, the important stuff is elsewhere, organized to probably OCD detail. But Desktop is a dumping ground that I really should manage better.

 

[Nermal]

I just let stuff pile up on my desktop. Eventually I get fed up and throw all the files into a folder called “Desktop stuff” or something. Then I repeat the process and make another folder like 6 months later. It’s pure chaos and I do not recommend it.

I used to do that. Now my desktop is strictly only for things I'm actively working on, and they get filed away into an appropriate folder afterwards. If the icons fill more than one column then it's time for a cleanup.

The other day I was looking for an old song and it was inside a folder called something like "Backups > Backup 19/06/2012 > Documents > Old PC Backup > Music 22/04/2008". I really need to go through all the rubbish on my NAS with a fine-toothed comb one of these days...

 

[Royksöpp]

I have everything organized in folders elsewhere, I only have a couple of folders on my desktop of frequently accessed files. It also helps to move everything right away before it get's too cluttered. I don't like using stacks since it messes up my folder arrangement.

 

[mblm85]

Nothing goes on my desktop. I have a rotation of nice wallpapers and that's it. Everything is in folders within my user profile, accessed through Finder. I don't even have any widgets. Everything I need goes in the Menu Bar or Control Centre.

 

[CSAppleFan]

do you have iCloud storage? If you have the 256GB Neo iCloud might be a good idea to help preserve storage. I keep a few items on my desktop but mostly it is empty

 

[unkl bob]

The two words 'Organize' and 'Desktop' do not belong in the same sentence.

 

[ElPaso]

do you have iCloud storage? If you have the 256GB Neo iCloud might be a good idea to help preserve storage. I keep a few items on my desktop but mostly it is empty

Yes, I have the 200gb plan. However, I was asking about desktop organization. 🙂

 

[Ben J.]

I've also always kept my desktop as tidy, clean, as possible. I also have both the Dock and menu bar on auto-hide, and they pop up when I move the pointer there. (These settings are easily found in System Settings. Remember, system settings has its own little search, top left, which is very useful.)

I keep a couple of smart folders on the desktop. Smart folders are basically a folder with a built-in search. Like; you could have a smart folder that shows all spreadsheet documents with a specific file type extension, anywhere on any drive on your mac, sorted by modified date. Or a smart folder showing any image file created in the last week, on any drive. And so on. Smart folders can be very powerful.

I also use the desktop for stuff I'm working on right now, and might not have a clear idea on where it should reside eventually. Much like how stuff in bits and pieces accumulate on a physical office desktop, until you lose control of the mess and are forced to tidy it all up.

Only widget I have on the desktop is a clock.

 

[sw1tcher]

See: The Website is Down #1: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude

😛

 

[eyoungren]

I do not keep anything on my desktop. Nothing. I have a glut of drive space on my primary Mac (2009 Mac Pro) and a glut of drive space across three NAS devices on my network. So there are folders for everything. In some instances, entire drives are dedicated to one thing.

I do not see any point in using wallpaper for your desktop and then covering it up with icons. For this same reason, I also keep my iPhone homescreens clean as well. Others are different, this is just what I do.

When I am working in InDesign, I like to have the main document as large as possible. So, I have the menubar hidden. I would also have the dock hidden, but it has a habit of popping up around the bottom when I want to click on something in a document. So, I killed it completely. I found a terminal command that would do this and I executed it. I don't actually use the dock much anyway, as I have an app launcher and app shortcuts.

I DO have certain folders that I access frequently that are left open on the desktop though. But those can be hidden, minimized or closed.

Finally, I have Hazel, and one of it's features is allowing you to monitor changes to folders and then execute actions when a change is detected. Anything saved to my desktop gets moved to a different drive and filed by date. So, I don't even have to work to keep my desktop clean - it's done automatically.

I have desktop wallpaper that spans multiple displays connected to my Mac, so I want to see it - not icons.

Now, if Apple would just allow me to adjust transparency on windows so I could see my desktop through them, that'd be great.

 

[eyoungren]

I just let stuff pile up on my desktop. Eventually I get fed up and throw all the files into a folder called “Desktop stuff” or something. Then I repeat the process and make another folder like 6 months later. It’s pure chaos and I do not recommend it.

I will say, I’ve started getting a little more diligent about adding tags to files and folders and that’s actually made a big difference in being able to keep a handle on stuff.

I used to do something similar and I stuck all that stuff in a folder I called DTF (for Desk Top Folder). Did that for years. Most of the stuff I do on the desktop is from downloads, so I've started just to use specific folders on another drive for that stuff. Everything else already tends to exist in its own folder somewhere else. Anything saved to my desktop, Hazel refiles on that other drive as well. So, my DTF folder has largely become obsolete.

 

[Ben J.]

An important part of my mac organization in general is Spaces and Mission Control. I have it basically like this:
Space 1: Desktop
Space 2: Browser window 1 (fullscreen). A few tabs with news, forums, and general browsing.
Space 3: Browser window 2 (fullscreen). A few tabs with video streaming of many sorts; TV news, sports, youtube etc.
I might have more spaces with fullscreen windows of things like Photoshop, Lightroom etc.

If you right-click on an active application in the dock, you can set it to open and show in any space, or one specific space only. So I have most utilitiy types of stuff; imessages, calender, notes, etc, to open only on space 1, the desktop.

I have a free little app called 'Quitter', that lets me set any app to quit or hide after a set time of inactivity, so mostly, when I go back to the desktop, space1, it's pretty tidy and clean.

 

[eyoungren]

An important part of my mac organization in general is Spaces and Mission Control. I have it basically like this:
Space 1: Desktop
Space 2: Browser window 1 (maximized). A few tabs with news, forums, and general browsing.
Space 3: Browser window 2 (maximized). A few tabs with video streaming of many sorts; TV news, sports, youtube etc.
I might have more spaces with maximized windows of things like Photoshop, Lightroom etc.

If you right-click on an active application in the dock, you can set it to open and show in any space, or one specific space only. So I have most utilitiy types of stuff; imessages, calender, notes, etc, to open only on space 1, the desktop.

I have a free little app called 'Quitter', that lets me set any app to quit or hide after a set time of inactivity, so mostly, when I go back to the desktop, space1, it's pretty tidy and clean.

At a certain point in my life, the number of monitors connected to my Mac allowed me to forgo Spaces. I have sufficient screen real estate to have multiple app windows individually dedicated to a specific display.

But, I was using Spaces for a really long time before that.

PS. I use Quitter as well. However, I'm using it specifically to auto hide other apps after a set amount of time. For actually quitting apps I'm using MagicQuit.

 

[ElPaso]

I've also always kept my desktop as tidy, clean, as possible. I also have both the Dock and menu bar on auto-hide, and they pop up when I move the pointer there. (These settings are easily found in System Settings. Remember, system settings has its own little search, top left, which is very useful.)

I keep a couple of smart folders on the desktop. Smart folders are basically a folder with a built-in search. Like; you could have a smart folder that shows all spreadsheet documents with a specific file type extension, anywhere on any drive on your mac, sorted by modified date. Or a smart folder showing any image file created in the last week, on any drive. And so on. Smart folders can be very powerful.

I also use the desktop for stuff I'm working on right now, and might not have a clear idea on where it should reside eventually. Much like how stuff in bits and pieces accumulate on a physical office desktop, until you lose control of the mess and are forced to tidy it all up.

Only widget I have on the desktop is a clock.

Excellent post, lots of great information. I've seen Smart Folders as a menu option, but never really knew what they are - now I'm gonna look into them. Thanks for your response.

 

[1rottenapple]

I am old school. I use the documents folder for things I want on the machine.

And I use iCloud folder for things I want to keep forever.

And I organize things based on topics/subjects/project/issue/etc.....

I keep my desktop organized except for temporary folders.

I also store my 6k plus music in the music folder for iphone/ipod syncing, and photos are on an external drive. I do want to move to a larger mac w/ 1 or 2tb ssd one of these days...

 

[MultiFinder17]

I have exactly four things that stay on my desktop, all of which are fairly self-explanatory.

 

[conmee]

I do not recommend "organizing" things. I went ahead and organized files, folders, emails, back in January and now I am reliant on Spotlight to find anything as I still have muscle memory from where all my stuff used to be. lol

 

[Black_Mage]

Ever since I bought my first computer, I have enjoyed keeping my desktop empty. I am that way with my computers at home and my work computer. When I do put a file or folder on the desktop, it's temporary.

 

[awshucks]

I keep absolutely nothing on my desktop with the exception of drives that are plugged in. Reason why is because with my apps open I will forget about having files on the desktop. Macintosh HD is in the Finder sidebar and screenshots go in a "Screenshots" folder in iCloud Drive. Lots of people use the Desktop as a personal dumping ground for miscellaneous files, but that title belongs to my downloads folder. It's so disorganized! 🤣

 

[ElPaso]

The way I organized my Windows 11 desktop was to keep very few folders or items there. My passion is studying the histories and architects of pre-1930s buildings in El Paso, Texas, and publishing my research along with photographs and important screenshots. I like to use my almost empty desktop to collect the pictures and screenshots, plus opening two TextEdit files, one for my notes and one for the article. I go online to my sources where I can search for information: my favorite is newspapers dot com, and there are some others. Whatever information I find is placed on the computer desktop - pictures, screenshots of important newspaper articles, interesting facts, etc. After writing and posting the article, all of the material I gathered on the desktop is either deleted or filed elsewhere, then I go on with a clean desktop to my next project. Here is one of my articles. You may have to have a Facebook account to see it:

https://www.facebook.com/PreservationTexasWestRegion/posts/pfbid0oRVzdcngmt2v1s7Tx7VCHovKwGQZ96Ywi9VgdGpnXR2oSDBW2FCwaRbPEczq4e1Ml

After reading all of your excellent responses to my op, I believe I'll duplicate the way I used the Windows 11 desktop (on my old HP laptop) on my new MBN. One of the strengths on the MacBook is that it allows creative use. So I switched from a Windows Notebook to a MacBook to do the same thing?

 

[brinkeguthrie]

Nothing on the desktop. Ever.