Filing up desktop

One of the things that can really slow down your computer is if you fill up your desktop with folders. A good solution to speed up your computer is store the folders and use short cuts on your desktop.
How about you, do you have your desktop full of folders?

 

One thing that I don't like is when my desktop is full of folders or just anything actually because it just hurts my eyes, so I try to keep my desktop as minimal as possible. So my desktop is usually filled with game shortcuts, and shortcuts to important or often used softwares. Most of my works or assignments would usually be stored in My Documents, or I'll pin them to the start menu.

 

I tend to keep shortcuts to directories in subdirectories so that it doesn't get too out of hand. There are times that if I'm in a hurry, I'll leave a bunch of stuff on the desktop of a machine or two that I really shouldn't. There's even been times that I had virtual machines with too many directory icons on the desktop to where I got irritated with all of them being there, and decided to spend a few hours arranging, organizing, and categorizing each one. Once that was done, I felt a lot better about the way it was laid out, and decided that it would be best to never let it go or get that way again, even if feeling lazy.

One good alternative is to just have a flash drive or external usb drive connected that you can throw stuff to, and have a shortcut to it on the desktop. That way, you may still have to manage or arrange the layout later a little, but not that much on the desktop to where you can still find what you need to if in a hurry.

 

I agree there is nothing more unsightly then a desktop full of icons. I still don't understand how people can fill their desktop full of icons, how do they find anything?

 

There is a very cool piece of software for Windows called Fences. It automatically organizes your desktop icons and groups them into clear folder called "fences", it is fully customizable and looks very nice, the fences are similar to the way iOS handles folders, you should check that page out. By the way this will only make it look nice but it will not help you with performance, if anything your performance will probably suffer a little bit since you have an additional program running.

 

I used to have that problem, but now I use the "My Documents" folder to store all of my, well, documents. In my opinion, desktops should only be for application shortcuts.

I like how Linux DE's group all the applications into menus so that you wouldn't need to dump your applications onto your desktop in the first place.

 

My desktop is clean except for some shortcuts that I usually need like the word processor and the spreadsheet. Those 2 applications are my usual tools for my work so their shortcut icons should be on the desktop screen. Other than that, I try to maintain cleanliness. For me, it is messy to see a desktop full of shortcuts and folders as if it is a marketplace. Pardon me if your desktop is full of icons. No offense meant, just expressing my opinion.

 

I have heard of these programs before but I don't fully trust them. I always get the feeling that they will put my folders into a place I don't want them to be. If you install it don't forget to share your experience with it.

 

This program works pretty well and it looks pretty good too, but I stop using it and simply exercise more desktop cleaning discipline. I have a folder on my desktop were I put important stuff, if a document or file has remained on my desktop for long it either goes to that folder or gets deleted. I also run some scripts that put all images on the "My Pictures" folder , something like move *.jpg c:/... and so on, you can create scripts like that for other types of files like mp3s or word documents to go to your music or documents folders. I could even run those scripts as scheduled tasks but nah.. usually my desktop is pretty clean all the time.