People who use desktop as your unsorted downloads folder, who hurt you?
I use the desktop as a very temporary folder. Because I’ll be annoyed by having stuff on there and will delete them as soon as I don’t need them any more.
My downloads folder has random installers from 2021.
As god intended (sorted by downloaded date)
Why would I hide downloads in the downloads folder?
Kidding. I use downloads for downloads.
Desktop is for WIP project files.
Isn’t the desktop just a place for displaying a picture? People have icons there?
Story time.
I was helping someone at work the other day…
As part of my usual process, I minimized most of what the person was using, because I dgaf what users are actually doing on their computers. I’m only interested in getting the “problem” that they’re complaining about, solved, so I can go home.
When I finished minimizing everything, I shit you not, this person had two full screens of icons on their desktop. I couldn’t help but blurt out “that’s a lot of icons” they went on to describe how they use their desktop as a dumping ground and they clear the whole thing every few months.
Since I couldn’t give a single shit about what they do with their computer, I said something to the effect of “alright”, fixed the unrelated “problem” they had and moved on.
I do this. It’s the “heap system”. After a couple of months it gets full and I create a folder called “crap” and move everything inside it. After this, the process repeats itself and often leads to folder trees like C:\Users\dh\Desktop\crap\crap2\more crap\crap\important crap\crap.
This usually continues for the life of my computer and then, one day, it just gets wiped because buggered if I know what’s in the crap folder…
I do the same thing, but mostly because I develop Doom mods for fun and it’s just an easy place to dump sprites and audio files. I can drag a file directly from my desktop to the modding program I use, and then just clean up once I’m finished working on what I’m working on. Otherwise my desktop just has a few shortcuts.
I don’t get how this is easier than just having an explorer window open to a folder with the files where the exposed desktop would be.
But hey, you do you. I’m not about to say that you can’t use your PC like this. I’m not your manager, and you can do what you want.
Whether I “get” it or not is irrelevant.
Idgaf as long as it isn’t onedrive.
OneDrive can be configured to automatically back up your desktop. So the desktop might be OneDrive
True and that’s one of the reasons I quit Windows altogether. Linux doesn’t have this kind of bs.
Save to documents surely? It’s a document
I didn’t think that any Windows related software was actually aware that the ‘Documents’ folder is supposed to be for documents. Because my ‘Documents’ folder gets used as a dumping ground for any old program to drop their shit in. Even though there’s literally dedicated folders for app data and saved games.
Personally I make my own ‘Home’ folder with my own pictures, movies, documents etc. folders because whether it’s Windows, Linux or Android, the concept of having your own user folder for your own things is a joke because developers don’t respect that and just dump their files anywhere.
Yeah Documents is basically default for .local config save data trash for any and all programs and games, which is a bummer. I’d like to use it for documents lol.
I don’t use the Documents folder because of that reason, but it’s still weird to me that that doesn’t happen on Linux, so my Documents folder is mostly empty there
Yeah, documents itself isn’t bad but you still end up with a bunch of stuff just being chucked into the root of your user folder, despite the fact that folders like ‘.config’ exist. Personally, I like my ‘home’ space to be just my files, things that I’ve put there myself, without random programs making new folders and leaving dotfiles lying around. I’m a bit of a neat freak on my pc, way more than in real life. Personally, /home is just another /etc for me. My shit goes elsewhere.
I actually really like this and when I reconfigure my laptop I might implement the same thing
Kde gives me the option to keep my desktop folder, or any other folder, or files linked to that specific activity as my Desktop.
Least cluttered Windows Desktop:
pokemon blue, nice
Pffff, if you don’t attach to the grid you got way more space for files.
Gotta arrange by penis
Can you sort this by penis? Internet Explorer needs to be at the tip or I won’t be able to find it.
Thank you so much for this, setting this as my wallpaper right now.
Man, zooming in and looking at these icons was like a blast from the (not too far) past.
Where’s Bonzi Buddy?
There is a folder in my (Linux) desktop called “Old Desktop”
There’s a folder inside “Old Desktop” called… “Old Desktop”.
Oh, that’s easy to clean up. Just open explorer, go to desktop, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+X, make a new folder called 2025-Jan, and then inside of that folder, Ctrl+V. Problem solved, forever.
I absolutely do it the other way. Nothing is on my desktop except for the trash bin. There is a shortcut to the file explorer and browser pinned to the task bar. And that’s it.
There is nothing at all on my desktop except for a text document created by my girlfriend saying that she loves me that she snuck on there when I wasn’t looking.
Mine used the sticky note app makes me smile every time I open my laptop.
Bro you didn’t have to come here just to brag…
i don’t even have icons enabled on my desktop. Now I don’t have to feel stressed about cleaning it up
Yeah, this is the way. Disable icons and recycle bin too.
You’re ready for GNOME.
What’s gnome?
Assuming you’re not joking: Gnome Desktop Environment.
Thanks. I wasn’t joking. But it doesn’t look like something for me. It looks like Apples iOS, and I hate everything apple related.
Me: “I’ve got an elaborate folder structure for all my documents.”
Windows: “You want to put this in the root directory of OneDrive.”
Me: "No, I want to put it in \SpecialFiles\ProjectName\IterationNo\DetailedSchematic"
Windows: “Root directory of OneDrive it is.”
That’s why I debloat windows anytime I do a new install. Drop that box 🥊
It’s a work computer, so my options are limited
I fucking hate onedrive sooo much for this, it kills me a little everytime and it happens all the time. Im just a husk at this point. God damn fuck you onedrive.
and it gives you that shitty prompt with like 3 locations to dark pattern you into using it instead of just putting you in the explorer window so you can go right to where you want to fucking save it. Wasting a shitload of time.
Uninstall it. It’s an optional component.
Not on work locked down pcs its not.
Exactly.
Because My Documents is where Windows keeps all your save games from the last decade and beyond, because why would I use it to store MY DOCUMENTS?
Saving to desktop is insane behaviour and the OP just told on herself.
I agree, but I think the tone of the joke suggests that OP is at least somewhat self-aware
Rebuttal, with a physical desk you put things you need right now on top in the open. You wouldn’t grab something off the printer and put it into a drawer first, then reopen the drawer to get it out of your need it now.
The desktop is “right now” workspace. Why bother to put it into a folder whose only purpose is not to take things out of to put elsewhere? I could at least understand people who download direct to documents… but that still leaves a mess to clean up with installers and such.
Downloading to the desktop is not only sane, but more efficient.
Leaving everything on your desktop is a different conversation though.
You reminded me of this funny tweet
Desktop is for empty space so when you close everything it’s clean
I definitely would go ahead and put the printed document directly into a hanging file in my desk drawer if I could read/use the document without ever moving it like I can on a computer…
Somehow I’m doubting that you keep all your computer files in your download folder. You still have to move it. My way just makes it obvious it needs to be filled instead of leaving it on the junk drawer.
And the physical desk analogy still holds. Yeah you put it in a folder in the drawer, but it’s the wrong one. Unless you are specifying a custom filepath for each file, in which case, carry on.
Microsoft and application developers treat the Documents folder like a total dumping ground for whatever random nonsense they can dream up. No wonder people look elsewhere. Need to store user files? Documents. A database? Documents. Giant cache files? Documents. Config? Documents. Executables? Fuck it put those in Documents too.
Why would I ever store my real documents in a folder so littered with shit that I can never find anything? It’s not like the search actually works.
Also as a Linux user myself and to head off any smugness, developers do the same thing with the home directory so users end up inventing weird ways to stay organized.
Microsoft: put it in OneDrive. We will use your content to train our AI models. No really this is fine.
Also Microsoft: If you ever try to leave us we will delete all of your data on all of your devices. We might even do it at random just for fun…No, we won’t warn you.
I love the random deletetion. They deleted a whole year of my university notes just because.
I use downloads instead, it mainly functions as a temporary folder where anything unimportant can live and once it gets a scroll bar it all gets deleted. For the very rare things that are important I could then move them after.
I am the opposite and I absolutely hate it when I have to work on someone’s laptop with cluttered desktop and folders. Mine only has a taskbar at bottom and clock widget at bottom right corner. All temporary files goes to downloads or to organised directories. What’s the point of having a nice wallpaper if you can’t enjoy it.
I’m the same way. I will tolerate no icons on my desktop. It’s widgets or nothin’.
Now, my physical desktop, on the other hand…
You do at least have some shortcuts on your desktop, right?
Otherwise, why have a desktop?
You can open a picture if you want to look at it
You do at least have some shortcuts on your desktop, right?
Not OC, but no, that’s what the taskbar is for, I use my iconless desktop as a space to drag windows around and multitask
That’s what the super key is for, you hit the super key and start typing the name of whatever it is you want and hit enter just like a phone
So, what, remember the names of all the things I could want? Also, “just like a phone”?
Yeah like on a cell phone you type the name of the app and it shows up
Everything from start menu shortcuts. Much cleaner and nicer that way.
Edit: I am using KDE plasma so not the full screen start menu like in windows but the small box on bottom left with about 15 icons that I regularly use.
Everything downloads to the desktop, that way it’s in my face so I have to deal with it.
The clutter on the desktop annoys me into cleaning it up, but I’ll ignore a downloads folder once I’ve grabbed whatever I just downloaded.
you are the first person i’ve know to also do this! it really does help
But… You can just download things to their deserved spot in the first place?? Why the extra step
A lot of stuff don’t have a spot. And no, I’m not putting that meme template I will need for 5 minutes into the tmp folder, I’m not insane.
Desktop is my temp space. There are files with a very limited shelf live (logs I downloaded to search something, screenshots, …) so I have to clean them up on a regular base before my desktop becomes too crowded and I get annoyed.
