Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 45: Clear Your Desktop

Level Easy

Platform Windows, Mac OS X

Cost Free

It’s amazing how fast your computer’s desktop can fill up with shortcuts and files and turn into a virtual candy store of colorful icons beckoning your mouse pointer: “Click me! Click me!” It’s tempting to leave documents on your desktop because you’ll know they’ll be in sight at all times. But at what cost?

A cluttered virtual desktop is as bad as a cluttered physical desktop. It’s visually distracting and makes it easy to get derailed from the task at hand. (“Hey, lemme peek at that hilarious LOLcat just one more time!”) Clear your virtual desktop by removing all the icons you don’t need. Here’s how.

Windows

On Windows, most modern software puts a shortcut to itself on your computer desktop by default when you install it. Your web browser and email program might save files they download directly to your desktop. To maintain a completely clear desktop with absolutely nothing taking up space, you can disable desktop icons entirely by following these steps.

1. Drag and drop all the files you’ve saved on your desktop into the My Documents folder. (See Hack 11, “Organize Your Documents Folder,” for ways to get your My Documents folder under control.)

2. Delete all the shortcuts to software applications on your desktop that already exist in Windows’ Start menu.

3. To disable desktop items entirely, right-click the desktop, and from the View submenu, untick Show Desktop Icons.

4. In the latest version of Windows, ...