How to organize and clean up your Mac desktop

Group files with Stacks

1. Click the desktop, then choose View›, then Use Stacks. You can also Control-click the desktop and choose Use Stacks, or press Control-Command-0.
2. To change how they’re grouped, choose View›, then Group Stacks By and pick Kind, one of the dates (Date Last Opened, Date Added, Date Modified or Date Created), or Tags.
3. Click a stack to open it out, and click its down arrow to close it again. To flip through one without opening it, swipe left or right on it with two fingers on a trackpad or one on a Magic Mouse.

Group by kind if your desktop is mostly screenshots, PDFs and downloads; by Date Added if you think of files as “this week’s”; by tags if you already tag projects in Finder. Anything you save to the desktop afterwards drops into the matching stack by itself.

Sort, clean up and resize

If you’d rather see every file, keep Stacks off and tidy the layout instead:

• Sort. View›, then Sort By keeps icons in order by name, kind, date added, size or tags. Leave it on None to place them by hand.
• Clean up. View›, then Clean Up By lines everything up neatly on the grid, in the layout you pick, without keeping it sorted.
• Resize. View›, then Show View Options makes icons bigger or smaller, changes the spacing between them, moves labels to the side and shows extra details, such as how many files are in a stack. Smaller icons with more spacing look far less crowded.

Give files a home

Stacks and sorting tidy the desktop; they don’t shrink it. For that, move files into a few folders and keep the desktop for what you’re working on this week.

1. Select the files that belong together, Control-click one of them and choose New Folder with Selection.
2. Name the folder, then drag it to Documents or wherever it belongs, or leave it on the desktop as one icon instead of twenty.
3. Screenshots are the usual culprit: shortcuts save them to the desktop. Press Shift-Command-5, open Options, and under Save to choose another folder, or Other Location.

A color or symbol makes each folder easy to spot at a glance. Our guide to changing a folder icon covers both, on macOS 26 and later.

Hide the desktop icons

The quickest clean desktop is one that shows nothing at all. Your files stay where they are.

1. Open System Settings›, then Desktop & Dock.
2. Under Desktop & Stage Manager, next to Show items, turn off On Desktop.

The icons are hidden until you click the wallpaper to show them. To hide only the disks and servers, open Finder›, then Settings›, then General and, under Show these items on the desktop: turn off Hard disks, External disks, CDs, DVDs, and iOS Devices and Connected servers.

Older guides hide the icons with a Terminal command, defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop, followed by restarting Finder. You don’t need it on a current Mac: the setting above does the same job and is easy to undo.

Use Stage Manager

Stage Manager tidies windows rather than files: it keeps the app you’re using in the middle and lines up the others on the left. Turn it on in Control Center, or in System Settings›, then Desktop & Dock›, then Stage Manager. While it’s on, desktop items and widgets are hidden unless In Stage Manager is selected next to Show items. Click the wallpaper to see them.

If your desktop icons disappeared

Before you go looking for lost files, check these, most likely first:

• Icons are hidden. Show items is off for the desktop, or Stage Manager is on without In Stage Manager. Click the wallpaper; if they appear, it’s the setting.
• They’re in a stack. With Use Stacks on, dozens of files can sit in one pile. Turn Stacks off to spread them out.
• iCloud moved them. Turning on Desktop & Documents Folders in iCloud Drive moves your desktop into iCloud Drive. Turning it off leaves the files in iCloud Drive and gives your Mac a new, empty Desktop folder. Look for them under iCloud Drive in the Finder sidebar.
• Windows are in the way. Clicking the wallpaper moves windows aside to show the desktop. If that keeps surprising you, set Click wallpaper to show desktop (Apple’s guide calls it Show Desktop) to Only in Stage Manager in Desktop & Dock settings.

A tidy desktop with MacScapes

MacScapes, our live wallpaper app, fills the space you’ve just cleared with a slow, moving scene. Its widgets sit above the wallpaper and below your desktop icons, so the files you keep on the desktop stay on top and easy to click. Its folder icons take the wallpaper’s palette, and Apply Inside a Folder… gives every folder inside one the icon, including folders you add later, once MacScapes is running. The clock, date and day widgets are free.