Disable the desktop authomatic clean up: I wisKeep desktop icons organized my own way

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Hi everyone,
I read the threads regarding how to organize alphabetically the icons on my desktop, using Snap to grid and other options.
I'm running Lion and I don't want the icons to be automatically organized on the right side of my desktop every time I shut the computer down.
How can I disable that feature? I guess it is called "clean up".
I've looked into the view options and there is no trace of an "arrange by" feature... Only a "sort by" and it is already set to none.
Thanks for any help!
Alice
 

chscag

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Make sure that none of the "clean up" options has been selected. If an option is selected, unselect it. (If I'm understanding your post.)
 
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chas_m

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Why would there be ANY icons on your desktop (other than the hard drive icon of course)??
 

vansmith

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Because it's a perfectly valid place to store files (it being a folder and all).
 
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Why would there be ANY icons on your desktop (other than the hard drive icon of course)??

I'm shocked that your religion allows you even that one icon on your Desktop. O:)

Don't you know that you can turn that off and access your hard disk through the Computer window, or the Finder sidebar?!

Don't you know that keeping that hard-disk icon on your Desktop causes the system to composite an entire new context onto the screen? Why, over the course of your Mac's lifespan, you'll have used billions and billions of processor and GPU cycles to draw that icon! All those cycles add up, you know! If you use your Mac for five years, and add up all those drawing operations, you've probably wasted...oh, possibly as much as a hundredth of a second, just re-drawing that little icon!

You should be ashamed, ashamed, at wasting all of those precious GPU resources just so you, you lazy, slothful human, can open your hard disk a little bit faster. How dare you put your personal productivity above your Mac's efficiency!

Go! Go—Now!—to your Finder's preferences, and turn of that wasteful, decadent disk icon.
 
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Well, I thank you all and wanted to make clear that I never intended to offense anyone.

I just have my personal way of organizing my work and like to keep the folders on which I am currently working on the desktop: with three different activities, I like to have each folder and related downloads that I won't keep after the job is done in a specific column on the desktop...

Thank you, Chscag, for your advice, but non of those options is selected.

Also, the hard drive icon is not a problem for me, it can stay where it is, actually, it does not move when the clean up is done...

If I understand: there is no way, under Lion, to disable the clean up feature, am I right?

Thanks again,
Alice
 

vansmith

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If you have "Sort By" set to none, you should be able to arrange the icons as you see fit. You say though that you've already set this.

Can you arrange icons as you see fit in other folders? I wonder if this problem is specific to the Desktop or Finder as a whole.
 

RavingMac

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I confess to having a little problem following this entire thread. I have used OS X since Tiger and upgraded from that to Leopard, then Snow Leopard and now Lion on the same MacBook Pro and haven't encountered ANY difference in how Lion handles the desktop.

I am one of those individuals that clutters my desktop with files and folders and they stay exactly where I last left them, so I have to agree with Chascag that you probably have some setting somewhere checked if yours are being automatically organized for you.

EDIT: This is just a thought, but as was mentioned above, the desktop is an actual folder. Try navigating to it in Finder, click on the gear icon in the top bar and open the menu and go to the Organize by submenu and see if clicking on a different option (or if the options are even available) helps. I'm not at my Mac right now where I can check this for you.
 

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