1. Open it as a folder
Icons on a wallpaper are hard to sort. Open File Explorer, choose Desktop in the left-hand pane, then View → Details and sort by Type. Shortcuts, documents, images and installers now sit in their own blocks.
2. Clear the backlog
Work through it by type:
- 1Leave the shortcuts (type “Shortcut”) where they are.
- 2Delete installers (.exe, .msi) you've already run.
- 3Move documents to Documents and images to Pictures. Anything you can't decide on goes into one Desktop archive folder in Documents.
3. Stop it filling back up
Desktops fill up because saving there is the path of least resistance, and that doesn't change after a clean-up. A TidyFile rule watches the Desktop and, once a file has sat there for a week, moves it to Documents by year, while leaving your shortcuts alone. Screenshots that pile up on the desktop can go to their own month folders.
The TidyFile rule
Clear the Desktop weekly
- When a file
- in Desktop · type is pdf, docx, xlsx, png, jpg, zip · modified more than 7 days ago
- Then
- move to Documents\Desktop archive\{year}
Set it up once and TidyFile applies it in the background, to new files the moment they arrive. Preview what it'll do to the files already there, and undo anything from the activity log.
Questions
Does a cluttered desktop slow Windows down?+
A little. Windows has to draw a thumbnail for every file on the desktop, and if OneDrive backs up your Desktop folder, every file there is synced too. The bigger cost is time spent hunting for things.
Where is the Desktop folder on Windows?+
C:\Users\your-name\Desktop, or OneDrive\Desktop if OneDrive backs it up. Open File Explorer and choose Desktop in the left-hand pane to see it as a normal folder.
Will this move my app shortcuts?+
Not if the rule only matches real files. Shortcuts are .lnk files, so a rule that matches documents, images and zips leaves them where they are.