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A lot of icons and files on the desktop take up precious space on your screen and in your memory, so cleaning up your Mac desktop doesn’t only make the screen look good, but it also makes the machine work faster too. So, we will learn how to clean up desktop on Mac in this article.

How to keep all your desktop files in a grid formation on Mac. If your desktop has lost all structure and files are in every corner, you can easily snap them back into a grid formation, Right-click any blank space on your desktop background. Click on Sort By. Click Snap to Grid. Your Mac's desktop is where you do a lot of your work. Many of us have a tendency to use it to keep files we access frequently, piling them on until your desktop becomes a hot mess. Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to clean up your Mac desktop, then use these tips to keep it tidy in the future.

How Do I Clean up My Desktop on A Mac

We have gathered a list of the most effective tips and tricks to keep your desktop all nice and clean and your Mac work faster. Let's check out these useful tips below.

Trick 1: Arrange Your Desktop Icons

There are a number of things you can do to arrange your Mac desktop is well-placed columns automatically. Mac provides a very easy solution to automatically re-arrange your Mac desktop. All you need to do is hit Right-click on your desktop and select Show View Options (You can also go in the Finder app and look for this in View-> Show View Option or simply press Command + J) to get this screen.

The selection here gives you the option of automatically arranging your desktop according to Name, Size, Label, Date Modified, Date Created, Date Last Opened, etc. The first thing I would recommend is to check Snap to Grid and then select the arrangement criteria in the way you like.

Tips

The latest Mac OS X Mojave gives you another option to group together your files, which is called Stacks. As the name shows, this feature stacks the common files and folders on one part of your desktop screen instead of everything lying around scattered. It’s very useful when you are fond of putting things you use on the desktop more often. Just open Finder, then click View section and choose 'Use Stacks'.

Trick 2: Adjust Icon Size on Desktop

Mac has always optimized its features to make them user-friendly, and what makes anything special are the small details. You have the option of adjusting small details when it comes to your desktop icons, you can select the size of the icons on your desktop along with the space between the grid columns. This is an excellent feature to clean up Mac desktop even when you have a large number of icons.

Trick 3: Organize Desktop Items into New Folders on Mac

We talked about the cool stacking feature in the latest macOS X Mojave, but even if you are using an older version of macOS, there is a very easy way to get around this fix. You can group all the items that fall in some category or the other and put them in folders. All you have to do is create a folder on the desktop and name it for the category you would like to group your files in and start throwing everything inside. Isn’t it an amazingly easy way to clean up Mac desktop!

You can right-click anywhere on your Mac desktop and click New Folder (if you are a fan of keyboard shortcuts, just hit Command + Shift + N), rename the folder and here you go.

Trick 4: Hide Desktop Icons on Mac

If you have done the above things to clean up your Mac desktop and still feel that you need more space on your screen. Mac OS Finder lets you hide the items on your screen till the time you want to use them. A number of ways are available to achieve this.

1. Use Finder:

You can go to Finder > Preferences and just select what all devices you want to show or hide on your Mac desktop (The items can always be accessed from the Finder sidebar).

2. Use Terminal

Another useful tip helps to clear Mac desktop by hiding all your desktop icons temporarily when you are not using anything. This might get a little technical but if you learn this single command, so we don’t recommend this way to beginners. Type the following command in the Terminal application:

And a similar command can bring all those hidden icons back to your desktop.

Trick 5: Get Rid of All Unneeded Files

How to clean up my Mac desktop with a more efficient way? Have you ever wondered if you need all those files jumbled up on your desktop or not? As a rule of thumb, anything older than seven days should be moved away from the desktop, maybe in some other folder on your drive. If you don’t remember why you put any file on the desktop in the first place, then it has no place on your Mac desktop at all. Get rid of these files to get a lot of space cleaned up on your Mac desktop. You can use either of the following.

1. Move to Trash

To get rid of a file you don’t need anymore, you can just move it to the trash items folder. To remove an icon, select and drag it to the Trash or you can right-click and choose ‘Move to Trash’. However, cleaning up every icon from the already cluttered Mac desktop takes up a lot of time, a recommended way is to use an efficient Mac cleaning software. And the Umate Mac Cleaner is one of the best Mac cleaner app available on the market, which is highly recommended and trusted by many famous tech sites like Macworld, MakeUseof, Cult of Mac and more.

2. Automatically Detect and Delete All Unneeded Files with Umate Mac Cleaner

Automatically removing all your unnecessary files can be done by using Umate Mac Cleaner. It is easy to use, efficient and powerful with the best features available for cleaning up your Mac. Umate Mac Cleaner is able to completely scan your Mac system and chase junks from every corner of the device for a full cleanup.

One of the app’s main features - Clean Up Junk is designed to locate all the unneeded files and remove them on a single click. It has 2 cleaning modes available - Quick Clean and Deep Clean. Instead of digging through a cluttered desktop, you can just let the app scan through your Macbook to find all the files you don’t need in minutes. You definitely want to use this application rather than clicking every icon one by one.

Getting Umate Mac Cleaner up and running on your computer is very easy and simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Download , install Umate Mac Cleaner and launch it.

2. Hit the big Scan button in “Clean Up Junk” tab.

3. Once the scan is complete, only select the items you want to delete and click “Clean” to confirm the request.

Let's see which way is better to delete unneeded files on your desktop. You will find answer in the form below.

Actually, You Can Avoid Desktop Clutter & Keep Your Desktop Clean

You can use all these tips and tools to clean the clutter from your Mac desktop. The best choice would be to avoid this altogether in the first place and not let your Mac desktop get filled with unnecessary files. But the only reason these files get to your Mac desktop is that you need to quickly access them. A perfect application that provides you an alternate to avoid putting files on the desktop and still be able to quickly access them is ‘Spotlight’.

Spotlight is an application launcher embedded in MacOS. It’s a very simple way to access your files and applications. You can press Command + Space on your Mac anytime to go to Spotlight and type in the name of the app or file you need to access, the launcher will find the item and start listing the matches to your keywords as you type. You can search for any file, folder or application using Spotlight.

Conclusion

Now you know how to clean up Mac desktop, right? It’s not a surprise that we need to clean up our Mac desktop every now and then, even the most organized out of us get to this point. These tips will help you get your space sorted out, and your machine running as good as it always was. We recommend regularly using a cleaning software tool like Umate Mac Cleaner to avoid piling up junk files and other unnecessary desktop clutter on your Mac.

Just like any day-to-day item, your Mac needs a good cleaning once in a while. Getting rid of all the unnecessary files will help your Mac return to its factory excellence and speed up to match your needs. However, you might find yourself clueless as to where to start your Mac clean up: what can be deleted and what should be left on drive? Don’t worry. You might be a little bit lost right now but, as usual, we have some bulletproof tips and tools to help you clean your Mac and speed it up.

4 steps to Mac cleanup

The good news is that in four (or even less) steps you can get a cleaner Mac and boost your Mac’s performance.

If your Mac is out of storage space or starts running slow, you’re up for a cleaning game. And you don’t have to do it alone. We’ve prepared the smartest memory-boosting hacks and practices to speed of your Mac safely. Time for an easy Mac cleanup!

Clean up your Mac’s Desktop

This might seem like an obvious step to take, but you’d be surprised how many Mac users believe the Desktop is the perfect place to store files and docs, handy and always on tap. However, that’s a rookie mistake. Fortunately, you can fix it. That’s why you should clean your Mac starting from the Desktop before you go any deeper. Be honest, can you even see your desktop background clearly now or is it obscured because of the icon-riddled mess?

The fact is, that the Finder treats any folder or file on your desktop as a window. A couple of items on the desktop cause no problem, but if the clutter persists, your Finder will soon slow down and get on your nerves. So better sort it all out to separate folders and let us quickly take you to number two.

Free up your Mac’s hard drive

When it comes to storage, there are items you know about (like your photos and videos) and many hidden entities (like cache files, logs, and app junk). These deep-seated junk files may start off small, but over time they will begin to weigh your Mac down.

Tip: According to one test conducted by MacWorld, nearly full hard drives perform 17.5% slower than the cleaner ones. That’s why it’s so important to refresh your hard drive every now and then. Your system will convert the newly-released free space into virtual memory to ensure your apps are running smoothly. Otherwise, if you’re low on space, your Mac will slow down.

One folder you should regularly clean up for a faster Mac is the Downloads folder. This is where junk piles up little by little, resulting in a total mess. For a complete Mac clean up, make sure to also ditch any unnecessary widgets or apps. Wait, but you think you might need them one day? Truth is, if you haven’t used them so far, you won’t use them in the future. So gather all your courage and hit Delete.

If your Mac is still running slow, then it could be due to old hardware. A new SSD or more RAM is the easiest way to boost your hardware performance without having to spend too much.

How do I know what to delete?

What’s really annoying is that some massive folders on your Mac remain invisible. Each app or website visit leaves behind its own archive of data, which keeps growing over time. To hack this, you can use CleanMyMac X app by MacPaw. It uncovers large redundant files you can delete. And this application is notarized by Apple.

You can delete:

• broken downloads

• remains of old apps

• outdated cache

It found 5.81 GB on our computer, but it may detect even more on your Mac.

Take control of startup and login items

When your Mac boots up, the macOS will launch various startup items. Some you do need, but nearly half of them can be safely switched off. Otherwise, they’ll sit in the background using up your system resources and slowing your Mac down.

To remove startup and login items manually, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and click on your username. Next up, click on “Login Items” and select all the apps you don’t need running at startup. Then click the “-” button below and you’re done. By disabling the startup programs, you’ll have a speedier Mac next time you boot up.

Repair disk permissions

Disk permissions act like doorkeepers preventing third-party apps from meddling with your system. But disk permissions can get broken, which limits your Mac ability to find the right files.

If you’re on El Capitan or older OS X versions, you can repair disk permissions using the following command in the Terminal window:

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --verify --standard-pkgs /

It will now check the validity of your disk permissions. If you get anything saying “permissions differ”, then you can fix it with this command:

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs -- volume /

How To Clean My Mac Desktop For Free

If you are a mere mortal, uneasy with using Terminal, a Mac cleaning utility like CleanMyMac X, can do a better, risk-free job. A single click in Maintenance > Repair Disk Permissions solves it without fuss. With your disk permissions fixed and verified you can enjoy a smoother overall Mac experience.

The free version of this tool is available for download here.

Once you’ve finished to clean up your Mac, make sure to reboot your machine for a fresh start.

Delete System Junk and browser cache

System Junk can account for significant amount of disk space. It’s a broad term that describes temporary files created by your OS itself and all your apps. Since we mostly use our Macs to go online, the internet-related junk takes up the most space.

How to clean up your browser cache:

• For Safari, click Develop in the top menu

• Then, click Empty caches

• For Chrome, click the “hamburger” icon in the top right corner

• Then click More tools > Clear browsing data

Find hidden files on your drive

You probably know that a lot of files are purposely made invisible on your Mac. Not necessarily with bad intentions. Such files could be crucial system components and thus protected from accidental deletion. Quite often, however, you’ll encounter remains of old apps, invisible adware, and extensions.

There is a shortcut key combination to reveal the unseen files.

• Go to your Documents, or any other directory

• Click Shift +Command + Period key

Do you see any grayed out files? Check what these files are and delete them if they look suspicious.

Remove old backups (and Time Machine backups)

There are several layers of backups built in your macOS. Local Time Machine snapshots, iOS, and iCloud backups, etc. If we’re talking about a clean Mac, that’s free from old baggage, you should look into removing them too.

Here is how to remove local Time Machine backups (a.k.a snapshots)

Click Launchpad and type in Time Machine

Your backups will be broken by locations, like Desktop. You can use arrows to the right to navigate between past states of that location.

Now, click on the gear icon in the menu above.

Select “Delete All Backups” in the menu.

Delete the iCloud backups stored on your Mac

Open System Preferences > iCloud.

Click Manage... at the bottom the pane.

Look through the list of iCloud backups in the sidebar.

Build the map of your storage

Any computer is ultimately a tree of folders. What if you could draw the map of all folders you have on your Mac and see how large these folders are?

Apparently, there is an ultra simple way to do it. Some applications like Daisy Disk or CleanMyMac will build such “folder tree” for you and it’s really fascinating to look at.

For example, this is the Space Lens tool from CleanMyMac X:

The blue bubbles stand represent my folders big and small. You can dive into each folder exploring your drive in a completely new way, much more informative than using the Finder. You can find your long lost folders and locate your biggest space wasters.

• To use this tool, download the app (see the button above)

• Click the Space Lens tab in the sidebar

Clean your Mac the smart way, all the way

Clean My Mac Free

If you’ve been following the steps above (and read some extra tips), you are fully equipped to clean up your Mac. Because you don’t need to be a bearded IT guy to do it. Let alone spend extra cash to improve your Mac’s performance. Simply cleaning your system as steps above suggest or using a dedicated app like CleanMyMac will help you out. By the way. CleanMyMac is free to download, so give it a try. And see your Mac’s capabilities now, when it it’s not weighed down by junk.