Keep my desktop neat and tidy

**barryrueger** · December 26th, 2005, 05:07 PM

Is there any way to keep the Mac from dropping every downloaded file known to man on the desktop? My screen is so cluttered with PDFs, DMGs, GIFS, TIFFS, and sundry other things that I can't find the icons that I need.

Thanks

Barry

**Dusky** · December 26th, 2005, 05:26 PM

Originally Posted by barryrueger

Is there any way to keep the Mac from dropping every downloaded file known to man on the desktop? My screen is so cluttered with PDFs, DMGs, GIFS, TIFFS, and sundry other things that I can't find the icons that I need.

Which application is doing the downloading? Is it Safari? If so, go to the menubar; click on Safari; select preferences; make sure "General" is selected in the window that emerges (top left corner of window); look for "Save downloaded files to" and set it to where you want the files to be downloaded.

The steps are similar for other applications. That is, set the "preferences" to your liking.

**fryke** · December 26th, 2005, 08:11 PM

But be aware of the fact that you'll still accumulate a lot of stuff that later on you won't be sure whether you still need it or not. I actually tend to keep downloads on the Desktop and sort things out once a week at least.

**kainjow** · December 26th, 2005, 09:58 PM

You could also create a folder action for the Desktop and filter files by extension and then move them somewhere...

**fryke** · December 27th, 2005, 05:35 AM

... and later come here and ask questions about "where do all my files go?!" when you forget about that folder action?

**barryrueger** · December 27th, 2005, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by kainjow

You could also create a folder action for the Desktop and filter files by extension and then move them somewhere...

Cool! How does one do that? I already have Firefox set to download files to a "Download" folder, but still accumlate every PDf that I open and other dreck all over the desktop.

**ex2bot** · January 10th, 2006, 10:27 PM

Go to your home folder, right-click (or control-click) on the folder. Select "Attach a Folder Action" from the pop-up menu, and explore the Applescripts available. You could, of course, learn Applescript and create your own.

Doug

**morning** · February 8th, 2006, 02:40 AM

You can probably guess that I'm not too savvy here.

I have my downloads sent to a folder on my desktop, handy for cleaning up. however, there are some things that I cannot remove from my desktop, they are labelled volumes in the 'get info' box. they are all .dmg . I can't throw them out, I can't move them, or hide them or anything. they are programs like messenger or firefox. what am I doing wrong here?
Thanks -M