Do you remember all the noise I made about a distraction free working environment on my Mac?
The end result of too many distractions is a Desktop full of clutter. Documents, clippings, images, photos, Safari archives, and so many files scattered all over that they surely out number the cactus in West Texas. How do you beat desktop clutter? With a click.
Click The Desktop Clean
No, not lick the Desktop clean. That would be gross. Though, to be honest, it was Steve Jobs who said that Mac OS X’s Aqua interface was so gorgeous you’d want to lick it.
I have my standards and at least a modicum* of self control. So, I didn’t lick it (even though I thought about it) when he made the suggestion.
So, it’s click the Desktop clean. Or, cleaner. All you need is a little faith that Desktop Cleaner does what you think it says it does.
After all, moving everything that’s on your Mac’s Desktop straight to the Trash will also give you a clean Desktop. There are really only two inexpensive ways to rid your Mac of Desktop clutter.
Either one will work. Only one is cheapest. Only one takes the most time.
The Cheapest Way
Silly me. This is the way I’ve been doing my Desktop file cleaning for years. Decades, even. One file at a time. At the end of the day, when the sun has set, the children are off to sleep, and the glass of wine is half full, I drag files from the Desktop back to their respective folders in Documents.
Ho hum, the tedium.
Yes, it works. Well, maybe it does. Wine helps. The busier I was during the day, the messier the Desktop, the more files that had to be moved, one at a time (under the influence of intoxicating beverages), back to their home folders.
Is there a better way? Yes. Not cheapest. But cheap.
The Cheap Way
Desktop Cleaner is a Mac app that automatically, automagically (because I don’t really know how it works and assume the developers are intoxicated, too) clears the scattered files and moves them to the Documents folder.
That’s what it does. Files get sorted into folders based on the file. Images go into Images, video clips into Video. And so on. You set the destination folder and tell Desktop Cleaner to keep on the Desktop files you really want there.
Yeah, this is a little like cleaning a regular desktop by shoving all that’s on top into a big box, but it works, it’s cheap, and you’ll feel good about your accomplishment when you click and the clutter is gone (helps to use wine or have low self esteem).
*I checked. I’ve never used that word online before. But it’s not a first usage. Bambi Brannan used it on Mac360 back in 2004. I said I checked.
