Desktop clutter

After opening and closing a file on my iMac, the icon for that file remains on my desktop. Is there any way to prevent this?

That's not normal.

A little more (well, a lot more) detail, please.

Every time I open a document, spreadsheet, picture, or just about anything else, an icon for that file appears on the desktop. Eventually we'll have hundreds of these icons cluttering the desktop, even though the files have been saved and closed.

Is there any way to prevent that from happening?

Thanks!

Saving the files to someplace other than your desktop might be an idea.

For example create new folders in Documents and name them as you wish - Personal - Medical Records - Snow Leopard Items etc etc.

chapjacobs said:

Every time I open a document, spreadsheet, picture, or just about anything else, an icon for that file appears on the desktop. Eventually we'll have hundreds of these icons cluttering the desktop, even though the files have been saved and closed.

Is there any way to prevent that from happening?

Click to expand...

YOU are doing this, not the computer. However they got onto your Desktop, you just need to figure out where they should "live" and put them there. A good place for documents is the Documents folder. Once a document, or file, is placed there, it will stay there unless you move it. You can, of course, have many sub-folders in Documents.

If something really bizarre is happening, you still haven't done a very good job of explaining the situation.

Take one example and describe how you open, edit, and save it. Stop giving these generalizations of "anything I open" etc. That's not getting us anywhere.