Least cluttered Windows Desktop:
Pffff, if you don’t attach to the grid you got way more space for files.
Gotta arrange by penis
If anybody needs me, I’ll be here for the next half hour or so.
Can you sort this by penis? Internet Explorer needs to be at the tip or I won’t be able to find it.
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.
I have the same but with the whole home directory.
/home/user/old_home/old_home/old_home
pokemon blue, nice
Me: “I’ve got an elaborate folder structure for all my documents.”
Windows: “You want to put this in the root directory of OneDrive.”
Me: "No, I want to put it in \SpecialFiles\ProjectName\IterationNo\DetailedSchematic"
Windows: “Root directory of OneDrive it is.”
Microsoft and application developers treat the Documents folder like a total dumping ground for whatever random nonsense they can dream up. No wonder people look elsewhere. Need to store user files? Documents. A database? Documents. Giant cache files? Documents. Config? Documents. Executables? Fuck it put those in Documents too.
Why would I ever store my real documents in a folder so littered with shit that I can never find anything? It’s not like the search actually works.
Also as a Linux user myself and to head off any smugness, developers do the same thing with the home directory so users end up inventing weird ways to stay organized.
I don’t ever search for files/folders in explorer’s browser anymore. I just use Everything and TreeSize at this point. Windows’ search function is pointless.
I have my files meticulously organized in hierarchical folders that sync across all my devices through One Drive and to my NAS through One Drive.
I hate that Microsoft wants to dump everything in Documents.
Also, for SOME FUCKING REASON, my work system, wants to put everything into the root of One Drive. Like fuck please put it in Documents at least. I don’t want ANYTHING in the root folder if I can avoid it, aside from maybe the occasional super special thing.
Today I used Alt+Space to open krunner, typed the name of a C script I’m working on, and it pulled up search results for the file, as well as relevant websites I visited related to that title, and in that moment I realized how much I missed out growing up with Explorer.
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.
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.
You see, I have OneDrive disabled and set to not sync.
It still wants me to save to a OneDrive directory, simply because I’m signed into my Microsoft account.
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?
yeah like a downloads folder
Not every temp file is downloaded.
Can confirm.
Your desktop probably looks like your room.
What is “your room”? Which room?
The padded one.
That’s my comfort room
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
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
Everything from start menu shortcuts. Much cleaner and nicer that way.
Edit: I am using KDE plasma so not the full screen start menu like in windows but the small box on bottom left with about 15 icons that I regularly use.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
Iirc, there’s an extension to allow for desktop icons? I may be misremembering, it might be a setting somewhere. Either way, I’m sure you can do it.
Oh yeah there is, it comes with Ubuntu. It’s a bit janky compared to the former native implementation though :(.
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
This is some Window level joke. BTW, I put my configs in home directory.
I find it hard to believe that Lauren, who saves everything to the Desktop, is dabbling with Office config files.
You probably keep the files she’s referring to in your Documents, Downloads, etc. folder within your home directory too.
Holy Shit.
You monster! They belong in ~/.config
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.
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.
Story time.
I was helping someone at work the other day…
As part of my usual process, I minimized most of what the person was using, because I dgaf what users are actually doing on their computers. I’m only interested in getting the “problem” that they’re complaining about, solved, so I can go home.
When I finished minimizing everything, I shit you not, this person had two full screens of icons on their desktop. I couldn’t help but blurt out “that’s a lot of icons” they went on to describe how they use their desktop as a dumping ground and they clear the whole thing every few months.
Since I couldn’t give a single shit about what they do with their computer, I said something to the effect of “alright”, fixed the unrelated “problem” they had and moved on.
I do this. It’s the “heap system”. After a couple of months it gets full and I create a folder called “crap” and move everything inside it. After this, the process repeats itself and often leads to folder trees like C:\Users\dh\Desktop\crap\crap2\more crap\crap\important crap\crap.
This usually continues for the life of my computer and then, one day, it just gets wiped because buggered if I know what’s in the crap folder…
Save to documents surely? It’s a document
I didn’t think that any Windows related software was actually aware that the ‘Documents’ folder is supposed to be for documents. Because my ‘Documents’ folder gets used as a dumping ground for any old program to drop their shit in. Even though there’s literally dedicated folders for app data and saved games.
Personally I make my own ‘Home’ folder with my own pictures, movies, documents etc. folders because whether it’s Windows, Linux or Android, the concept of having your own user folder for your own things is a joke because developers don’t respect that and just dump their files anywhere.
I don’t use the Documents folder because of that reason, but it’s still weird to me that that doesn’t happen on Linux, so my Documents folder is mostly empty there
Yeah, documents itself isn’t bad but you still end up with a bunch of stuff just being chucked into the root of your user folder, despite the fact that folders like ‘.config’ exist. Personally, I like my ‘home’ space to be just my files, things that I’ve put there myself, without random programs making new folders and leaving dotfiles lying around. I’m a bit of a neat freak on my pc, way more than in real life. Personally, /home is just another /etc for me. My shit goes elsewhere.
Yeah Documents is basically default for .local config save data trash for any and all programs and games, which is a bummer. I’d like to use it for documents lol.
Id just like to add that whoever started sending game files to the hidden part of documents should be shot. How hard is it to just make a Games folder and a Games Save folder?
Steam games need to store save files in the same library location as the game, using a sub folder that maps to the steam account name. Stop filling up the app data folder for the operating system account that is running steam. My C drive is full, go away.
Also, Windows doesn’t allow writing to files to in Program folders… So let’s put everything that needs RAM into that directory! But not the save files, those are hidden 7 layes deep in MyAss/hidden/hidden/almost there/hidden/docs/maybe save files.
