The Desktop is a great place to just drop stuff. I’ve found myself dropping so much stuff on my Desktop sometimes there will be 50 things on their before I really notice that it’s a mess. Beyond the mess factor, though, having that many things on your Desktop can really slow your system down….and if you’re running an older machine and you can’t figure out why you’re constantly getting beach balled, this could be the reason.
OS X treats every icon on your Desktop like it’s a complete Finder window. The icon takes up a chunk of memory, and the system has to track its position and size constantly. There is a simple solution to this, however, that will still allow you to drag stuff on your desktop.
Create a new folder on your Desktop. I call mine “Desktop Stuff”, but you can call it whatever you want. When you drag items to you desktop, either drag them directly to this folder, or move them to the folder after you have placed them on the desktop.
Making this one simple change can increase system performance for older machines (if your a desktop dragging junkie like me), plus it helps keep your desktop free of clutter.
4 thoughts on “OS X Quick Tip: Speed up your system by cleaning up your Desktop”
I hate a cluttered desktop, so now I´ve created a folder in documents called desktop 2, given it the desktop icon, put it in the sidebar beneath the original desktop and dragged it down to the dock, next to the trash. So if anything lands on my desktop, I´ve got plenty of ways to move it over to desktop 2 and I can also access it “stacks”-style from the dock-folder.
But I didn´t know it took up my resources leaving it on the desktop, so thanks for that. An added bonus, because I just like it un-cluttered.
does it take up system resources even if i just keep aliases of folders on my desktop? that’s what i do currently, but i may have to re-think that strategy 🙁
Yo hace mucho (desde 1995) tengo esa carpeta en el desktop, y la llamo “Pendientes” y son las cosas que luego veré u ordenaré y asà no las tengo desparramadas y a la vista en mi escritorio, como un TO DO o un In out, de las oficinas.