"Clean Up By" vs "Sort By"

[dcs.79c]

What's the difference between "Clean Up By" & "Sort By"? Both have the same options. It seems to me that "Sort By" is automatic & remains the way it is set even if the computer is turned off. Is that correct? I have a mini & a laptop. Both had Mavericks. Both were locking up & frequently showing the spinning beach ball. I was tired of force quitting an app so I nuked the hard drive on each one & did a clean install of Yosemite on each one. Anyway, before the nuke, I noticed that a flash drive icon would appear under the hard drive icon. Now, after a clean install of Yosemite, when I plug in a flash drive, the icon appears as the very last icon. I chose Sort By > Name & the next time that I plugged in a flash drive, the flash drive appeared below the hard drive. That's the way that I want it. So, is my assumption correct? Sort By is "permanent" & Clean Up By is used to rearrange the icons?

 

[toMACsh]

Yes, I think that's pretty accurate. Clean Up is used to straighten things out if you've been moving them around.

 

[dcs.79c]

Yes, I think that's pretty accurate. Clean Up is used to straighten things out if you've been moving them around.

Alrighty, then.

What's the difference between Sort By > Name & Sort By > Kind? I've tried both & I see no difference. The icons don't move when I switch between Sort By > Name & Sort By > Kind.

 

[toMACsh]

Alrighty, then.

What's the difference between Sort By > Name & Sort By > Kind? I've tried both & I see no difference. The icons don't move when I switch between Sort By > Name & Sort By > Kind.

If all the files are the same Kind, then of course you would see no difference. But if you have Word files, Excel files, jpegs, pdfs, etc. in the same folder, sorting by Kind will put them into those categories.

 

[dcs.79c]

If all the files are the same Kind, then of course you would see no difference. But if you have Word files, Excel files, jpegs, pdfs, etc. in the same folder, sorting by Kind will put them into those categories.

OK. That makes sense.

Perhaps I forgot to mention that I'm referring to the Desktop, but, I suppose that Sort By would also apply to files within individual folders, as well.

If I choose Sort By > Name then does Yosemite sort strictly by name no matter what the extension OR does Yosemite sort all jpegs alphabetically by name & all PDFs alphabetically by name, etc?

 

[Slydude]

You guessed correctly. Those options also apply to files within folders. As for your second question the OS does ignore extension when the Sort By Name option is used.

 

[toMACsh]

Perhaps I forgot to mention that I'm referring to the Desktop, but, I suppose that Sort By would also apply to files within individual folders, as well.

Good thing to mention. Many people will tell you not to have anything on your Desktop except your drives (hard drive, external drive, flash drive). I will tell you that you should not keep files on your Desktop. I have a few aliases for applications on the Desktop to avoid overcrowding the Dock. Some would say not to do that, but it's never caused a problem for me. How many items are on your Desktop?

 

[dcs.79c]

Good thing to mention. Many people will tell you not to have anything on your Desktop except your drives (hard drive, external drive, flash drive). I will tell you that you should not keep files on your Desktop. I have a few aliases for applications on the Desktop to avoid overcrowding the Dock. Some would say not to do that, but it's never caused a problem for me. How many items are on your Desktop?

Just a few items, but they are copies of files that I have on a flash drive. When I update a file on the Desktop, I copy it to the flash drive.

I know that hard drives are pretty reliable nowadays, but I'm a firm believer in Murphy's Law.

Some day I'll use Time Machine to back up my files. Does Time Machine support backing up to a RAID mirror?