5 Effective Tips to Organize and Clean Up Mac Desktop

March 25, 2022Ashley Mae

Mac desktop is the place where you will do most of your work. So, it's quite necessary to keep everything organized, especially when you keep various files including icons, documents, folders, photos, aliases, and more on your Mac desktop. Surely you want to clean up Mac desktop and make sure you can quickly find the items you need.

This post shares 5 useful ways to help you organize files on Mac desktop. You can use them to clear desktop on your Mac with ease.

Clean Up Mac Desktop

Part 1. Organize Items into Folders to Clean Up Mac Desktop

macOS is designed with a built-in feature to quickly group items on your Mac desktop into folders. You can use it to clear desktop on Mac.

Press and hold the Command key, click on the files one by one until you select all the items you want to group. Right-click or Control-click one of them, and then choose the New Folder with Selection option. By doing so, you can easily put one kind of files into a folder.

Organize Items Into Folders On Mac Desktop

Part 2. How to Automatically Sort Items and Clean Up Desktop on Mac

Mac offers another simple way to arrange the files you are working on and organize them. You can choose to keep your files sorted by name, kind, date created, date modified, size, tags, and more. You can follow the steps below to sort all types of data into a grid and clear desktop on your Mac.

Step 1:
On your Mac desktop, right-click on any blank space, and then choose the Clean Up By or Sort By option.
Step 2:
Now you are allowed to select your preferred option like Name, Kind, Date Modified, Date Created, Size, or Tags to clear space on Mac.
Sort by Clean Up Mac Desktop

To access the automatically clean up Mac desktop feature, you can also click the top View menu and then select the Sort By or Clean Up By.

Part 3. How to Use Stacks to Automatically Clear Desktop on Mac

Similar to the method above, you can also use the built-in Stacks feature in macOS to organize items on your Mac desktop. With its help, you can easily clean up Mac desktop and group files by categories.

Control-click or right-click on the blank area of the Mac desktop. Select either the Sort Stacks By or the Group Stacks By option. Then you can choose an appropriate option from the sub-menu to organize all files on your desktop. You can also click the View menu on the top menu bar to access the Use Stacks feature.

Use Stacks To Clean Up Mac Desktop

Part 4. How to Clean Up Your Mac Desktop and Free Up Storage

To manage all types of data on your Mac desktop and get more available space, you can rely on the built-in storage management app.

Click on the Apple logo in the upper-left corner of the menu bar, choose About This Mac, hit the Storage tab, and then click on the Manage button. Now you get 4 main solutions to optimize your Mac space.

Recommendations to Optimize Mac Storage

Part 5. Better Way to Manage and Clean Up Data on Mac Desktop

To effectively free up Mac space and remove various useless data, you can use the all-featured Mac Cleaner. It provides you with an easy way to put all types of files organized.

Mac Cleaner

161,522 Downloads

Aiseesoft Mac Cleaner – Best Card Cleaner for Mac

  • Organize all types of data on Mac and free up Mac storage space.
  • Remove unwanted Mac files like junk, large and old data, duplicates, and more.
  • Uninstall unused and harmful applications and delete associated data.
  • View Mac status, protect Mac data and privacy, and optimize Mac performance..
Free DownloadFor macOS

Secure100% Secure. No Ads.

Step 1:
This Mac Cleaner carries 3 main features, Status, Cleaner, and ToolKit. You can free download and open it on your Mac. Click on the Status, you can view the current statuses of your Mac, such as disk usage, memory, and CPU.
Getting Started
Step 2:
To manage Mac data and remove useless files from your Mac, you can choose the Cleaner feature.
Main Interface
Step 3:
There are more useful tools designed in ToolKit. You can use them to speed up your Mac in real-time, protect personal information, uninstall apps like Chrome on Mac, and more.
Mac cleaner Toolkit

Part 6. FAQs of Mac Desktop Cleaning

1. How can I create a new folder on my Mac desktop?

On your Mac, click on the top File menu and then choose the New Folder option. Now you can enter a name for the new created folder. Besides, you can right-click in an empty area on the Mac desktop and select the New Folder option. Here you can also use the Command + Shift + N keyboard shortcut to create a new folder.

2. How to add and use tags to organize files on my Mac?

Open Finder and right-click on the item you want to tag. Now you can select one of the colored tags in the drop-down menu to tag it.

3. Where to reduce the number of startup and login items?

Click the Apple menu and choose the Preferences option. Click on the Users & Groups and then select the Login Items. Now you can check and manage the startup and login items based on your need.

Conclusion

When your Mac desktop is disorganized, you can use the tips above to place everything in order. If you still have any questions about how to clean up Mac desktop, you can leave us a message.

What do you think of this post?

Excellent

Rating: 4.9 / 5 (based on 358 votes)Follow Us on

Disqus IconLeave your comment and join our discussion
Blu-ray Player box

Blu-ray Player is a powerful player that can play Blu-ray disc, Blu-ray folder, DVD disc/folder/ISO file, acting as common media player for any HD/SD video files.

Free DownloadFor Windows

Secure100% Secure. No Ads.

Free DownloadFor macOS

Secure100% Secure. No Ads.

Back to top