View Options for the Desktop

In this lesson for macOS Mojave, I look at the different view options we have for the Desktop on the Mac. This includes cleaning up selected files on the Desktop, sorting files and folders on the Desktop, and selecting which items to show on the Desktop.

Cleaning Up a Selection on the Desktop
When you clean up a selection, you first need to select the files you want to clean up. Then go to View in the Menu Bar and choose Cleanup. This will snap your selected items to a grid.

Clean Up By Name, Date, Kind, or Tag
In addition to snapping your desktop items to a grid, this option will also sort your files and folders. This option applies to all the items on your desktop, not to just the ones you select.

Using Desktop Stacks
This is a new feature for macOS Mojave. When you select this, it will stack your documents by kind or date or type. This is how I have my desktop configured. To see more on this, check out the lesson in the What’s New section o this tutorial.

View Options for the Desktop
When you select View Options under View in the Menu Bar, a new window will open. This window has various options for the Desktop including setting the icon size, the spacing of the grid, text size, and label position. You can click on any of the options to see how it affects your files and folders on the desktop.

Selecting which items to show on the Desktop
You can also set what you want to see on the Desktop. This includes hard drives, shared drives, and CD/DVDs. To configure what you want to see, you first need to open the Finder Preferences, under Finder in the Menu Bar. Then select the General tab. From there you can select and deselect the items you want to show on your Desktop.

See this Lesson Action
To see this lesson in action, take a look at the video above.

Back to: Tutor for macOS Mojave > Working with Finder Windows