Least cluttered Windows Desktop:
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Gotta arrange by penis
If anybody needs me, I’ll be here for the next half hour or so.
…there’s no “sort by penis”…
Can you sort this by penis? Internet Explorer needs to be at the tip or I won’t be able to find it.
Thank you so much for this, setting this as my wallpaper right now.
Aww, I love TWID! Thanks for the reminder, haven’t watched it in awhile
Man, zooming in and looking at these icons was like a blast from the (not too far) past.
There is a folder in my (Linux) desktop called “Old Desktop”
There’s a folder inside “Old Desktop” called… “Old Desktop”.
Are you me? Haha recently I went looking through them and was appalled. Not enough to actually do anything about it though.
Oh, that’s easy to clean up. Just open explorer, go to desktop, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+X, make a new folder called 2025-Jan, and then inside of that folder, Ctrl+V. Problem solved, forever.
Where’s Bonzi Buddy?
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I absolutely do it the other way. Nothing is on my desktop except for the trash bin. There is a shortcut to the file explorer and browser pinned to the task bar. And that’s it.
There is nothing at all on my desktop except for a text document created by my girlfriend saying that she loves me that she snuck on there when I wasn’t looking.
i don’t even have icons enabled on my desktop. Now I don’t have to feel stressed about cleaning it up
Ah, a person of culture! Though I admit everything that I regularly use is pinned to the taskbar.
Taskbar is all you need. Also, the windows/meta button, then just typing (or if you’re in KDE, literally just typing) the thing I want to do and hitting enter. Fuck desktop icons.
You’re ready for GNOME.
Windows + E for file explorer as well, when you can’t be bothered with the mouse. I wish you were able to pin specific folders to the taskbar, as opposed to just general explorer. I want to save one click.
Microsoft: put it in OneDrive. We will use your content to train our AI models. No really this is fine.
Also Microsoft: If you ever try to leave us we will delete all of your data on all of your devices. We might even do it at random just for fun…No, we won’t warn you.
I love the random deletetion. They deleted a whole year of my university notes just because.
Good god. Putting stuff in the desktop is a big yuck. Your desktop probably looks like your room.
The desktop is like the inbox of files, inbox-zero it and it’s a tidy place to keep things in focus until they’re sorted and filed away or deleted.
Right. Why have an easy to locate area to quickly access temporary files, amiright?
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Not every temp file is downloaded.
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If a cluttered desktop is a sign of a cluttered mind, what does an empty one signify?
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The visitor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself, “it is overfull, no more will go in!”.
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “your desktop is full of documents and shortcuts. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Zen
I alternate between a cluttered and empty desktop.
Can confirm.
Your desktop probably looks like your room.
What is “your room”? Which room?
The padded one.
take it back
No
I am the opposite and I absolutely hate it when I have to work on someone’s laptop with cluttered desktop and folders. Mine only has a taskbar at bottom and clock widget at bottom right corner. All temporary files goes to downloads or to organised directories. What’s the point of having a nice wallpaper if you can’t enjoy it.
I’m the same way. I will tolerate no icons on my desktop. It’s widgets or nothin’.
Now, my physical desktop, on the other hand…
You do at least have some shortcuts on your desktop, right?
Otherwise, why have a desktop?
You can open a picture if you want to look at it
That’s what the super key is for, you hit the super key and start typing the name of whatever it is you want and hit enter just like a phone
So, what, remember the names of all the things I could want? Also, “just like a phone”?
Yeah like on a cell phone you type the name of the app and it shows up
You do at least have some shortcuts on your desktop, right?
Not OC, but no, that’s what the taskbar is for, I use my iconless desktop as a space to drag windows around and multitask
What’s the point of having a nice wallpaper if you can’t enjoy it.
That’s what the aecond monitor is for
Everything downloads to the desktop, that way it’s in my face so I have to deal with it.
The clutter on the desktop annoys me into cleaning it up, but I’ll ignore a downloads folder once I’ve grabbed whatever I just downloaded.
you are the first person i’ve know to also do this! it really does help
I do this too. I do not like anything on my Desktop, but I download files to there, which forces me to deal with them. Interestingly enough, my Downloads directory is a barren wasteland.
But… You can just download things to their deserved spot in the first place?? Why the extra step
Desktop is my temp space. There are files with a very limited shelf live (logs I downloaded to search something, screenshots, …) so I have to clean them up on a regular base before my desktop becomes too crowded and I get annoyed.
A lot of stuff don’t have a spot. And no, I’m not putting that meme template I will need for 5 minutes into the tmp folder, I’m not insane.
That requires effort up-front every time I click download.
I’d rather just click ‘download’ and let it go to an easy to find default location. The desktop means I won’t just forget about it for months. It may sit there for a day or two, but it definitely won’t get ignored the way a folder I rarely look at does; because the clutter right in my face annoys me into cleaning it up.
Working around/against my own procrastination.
Saving to desktop is insane behaviour and the OP just told on herself.
Rebuttal, with a physical desk you put things you need right now on top in the open. You wouldn’t grab something off the printer and put it into a drawer first, then reopen the drawer to get it out of your need it now.
The desktop is “right now” workspace. Why bother to put it into a folder whose only purpose is not to take things out of to put elsewhere? I could at least understand people who download direct to documents… but that still leaves a mess to clean up with installers and such.
Downloading to the desktop is not only sane, but more efficient.
Leaving everything on your desktop is a different conversation though.
I just do everything out of my file manager. I use Krusader, which has twin panes and tabs.
I definitely would go ahead and put the printed document directly into a hanging file in my desk drawer if I could read/use the document without ever moving it like I can on a computer…
Desktop is for empty space so when you close everything it’s clean
I’d be happy if those apps were asking to save to Documents like in the screenshot. But alas, reality is much more cruel. They always want to save to some vague OneDrive location, and won’t even show you the local file browser without extra steps.
If yOU dOn’T uSe oNEdrIvE iT is IMpOssiBle to AuTO sAve! The technology just doesn’t exist to save on a timer without involving the cloud!
Documents, Desktop and Picture folders are just moved from the user folder into the user folder\OneDrive folder.
Other than that it work exactly the same.
OneDrive also always has a local folder. Usually in your user folder.
You can blame a lot on OneDrive, but this isn’t one of them.
I don’t want any of my files uploaded to OneDrive; therefore I don’t want to save them in the OneDrive folder. I have other folders where I’d like to save my files instead.
So the behaviour I described is a persistent annoyance for me; despite you telling me it isn’t a problem.
I don’t mind OneDrive sync, I like it honestly.
What I absolutely do not want, is my Desktop on One Drive. For starters, its often a scratch place. I don’t want it instantly pushing 6GB of photos I just pulled off my camera’s memory card to the cloud before I can sorr them.
I would expect nothing less from a filthy outlook user
The cursed Linux alternative of this is usually putting things directly in the home folder – I used to do this until I got better. Desktop is simple to keep clean when you don’t have one in your “desktop environment” by default.
Some people who’ve used MacOs before OSX dump everything to the root filesystem out of habit. It works just as poorly as a file management strategy as one might expect, albeit better than putting everything on the desktop. Not sure how often that happens but I’ve known multiple people to do that.
For some reason I hate the idea of just dropping everything in the Home folder, yet Downloads just ends up becoming exactly that anyway lol
People who save files on the desktop deserve to use Windows.
I love GNOME for this. No desktop icons. Windows/super key, type the first letter or two, boom. It’s so pretty.
My phone on the other hand? The first screen is nicely arranged. The second screen is just a chronological list of the apps I’ve downloaded, because they automatically go to desktop, and they’ll clutter up my home screen if I don’t have a separate sacrificial screen for them
Same. I hate desktop clutter. The horrors I’ve seen when I’ve been on someone else’s PC. Random desktop documents that haven’t been touched in 5 years. Why?!
Even aside from looking ugly, it’s not even a good place for apps/files! If you have a window or two open, everything is obscured and you have to move windows out of the way to access your stuff.
They get a lot of shit for it, but IMO Gnome was 100% right to say “No. The desktop inevitably becomes a dumping ground and we don’t want that. Your app menu is for apps and your Home folder is for files. We have very good search functionality to find what you want. No desktop icons. If you want that, install an extension.”
The availability of extensions for everything is the true power of Gnome for me. They got most things right but I love being able to tweak every little detail to my exact liking
The reason I don’t use Gnome is “We don’t want that” Okay, and just who the fuck is ‘we?’
“We” is obviously the hard-working developers who predominantly work on Gnome unpaid. The people who provide the software for free.
To be completely honest, I’m not sure how you don’t know who “we” is in that context. When the devs of a project say “we”, who do you think they’re referring to, the Jackson 5?
Literally every project makes decisions on what their vision is and enacts it. Gnome is no different.
If you don’t like a piece of software, don’t use it. Nobody is forcing you to use it.
Frankly, you sound entitled. They aren’t obliged to make their project to the way you want it. Especially not when you’re getting it for free. Entitlement like that is the biggest cancer in the FOSS community, IMO.
Hmm, GNOME pays developers. There’s a team of full time employees steering GNOME, and staff. Sure they are a non-profit, but it’s a bit romanticizing to claim that they are doing all that work for free. I don’t think it is very nice or productive to call people names and gatekeeping FOSS this way. There’s such a thing as customization. It’s fine that GNOME is very opinionated (everyone accepts that they are and the project lead has said so time and time again that user choice is not part of their focus). But, at the same time, it’s not their project, there’s a complex governance structure that involves the community. It’s contradictory to speak this way about a component of a Linux distro. Linux is philosophically underlined by freedom of choice and personal customization, and it’s inappropriate to insult people for wanting some more of that.
No, no, no, no.
Some developers do some paid work. The vast majority is unpaid. I’m not sure where you heard that, but that information is incorrect.
And I never said they did all of the work for free, I said predominantly. Same goes for other projects.
Please don’t try to twist my words, I feel I was very clear with them.
Yes, it is their project. They own it. It’s theirs. They are the developers.
Linux is philosophically underlined by freedom of choice and personal customization
And Gnome doesn’t go against any of that. You are free to not use it. They aren’t forcing you. You are free to customise it. They aren’t stopping you.
Please stop acting so entitled. This is software they are providing for free, the bulk of the work being unpaid. They don’t have to do free work for your specific needs if they don’t want to. It’s their project.
I never insulted you. If my words hurt, then I’m sorry, my intention is not to hurt you.
I’m just trying to steer you away from the path you’re on of thinking you’re entitled to XYZ and some predominantly unpaid devs have to cater to your whims. They do not. It’s their project, not yours, and they rightly call the shots.
Sure, all those things could be argued to some degree or another. Just don’t call people cancer. Throwing insults devalues your argument.
I never called you cancer, or insulted you.
See:
Entitlement like that is the biggest cancer in the FOSS community, IMO.
I said feeling like the devs owe you something is entitlement, which is a cancer to the FOSS world. You aren’t owed anything, and neither am I.
Nowhere did I say you were cancer, unless you happen to proudly identify as an extremely entitled person.
Like I said, sorry if my words hurt you, but you aren’t entitled to have the devs carer to you specifically. The project is theirs and if you don’t like it, fork it or use something else. That’s what FOSS is all about.
This is actually the one thing I hate about GNOME. I keep a nearly fully empty desktop but I like having one as sort of a staging ground for temp files. I like just being able to chuck a file there and then drag it into another program, all without having nautilus open
Yeah, desktop as the temp location is great for a few reasons.
I can easily see what is in the queue.
It reminds me to do something about it.
I can rearrange the dozen or so icons for fun when I am having trouble picking what to do. Kind of like inventory management in an rpg.
When I hit about 15 it prompts me to clear the list by either finishing them or putting them all away so I can start again with a clear screen.
Why not disable apps going to your homescreen instead?
This is exactly how I use KDE, but without the GNOME look, which I am not a fan of. You don’t even need to hit meta first in KDE, you can just start typing if you have krunner on.
Windows works the same way, you just hit the windows key and start typing and you hit enter, made switching to popos much easier because I use it exactly the same way I do with my windows work laptop
Also You should check out kiss launcher for phone, just start typing and whatever app you want shows up, also has a history list that tries to have apps you use frequently at specific times. Although after using kiss for a few years now whenever I have to use someone’s phone it makes it really hard, seeing all those screens with icons like how can you find anything
I use downloads instead, it mainly functions as a temporary folder where anything unimportant can live and once it gets a scroll bar it all gets deleted. For the very rare things that are important I could then move them after.
How do you move a file after deletion? I need to know this black magic.
These days, replace “Documents” and “Downloads” with “the root folder of OneDrive”.
Yeah, that is so fucking annoying. I never save anything there, yet it absolutely always suggests that. Fucking microsoft.
This drives me mad. I work on multiple projects, how the fuck can I organise things of its all in one folder! The interface to select a different folder is like 3 clicks away too.
