84% of you rightly practice good desktop icon hygiene, but it turns out 16% of PC Gamer readers are just plain monsters
Overview & Key Takeaways
Letting installers and downloads and everything else have free rein over your operating system desktops... how can you live with yourselves?
It's gratifying to know that 84% of PC Gamer readers are sensible folk who would never allow their operating system desktop get into the sort of state you can see in the image above. And it's more gratifying still to know that a third of you are in the zen club where you have have a completely clear, clutter free desktop with nothing on it. This is the right choice. This is the way.
Though I will admit I'm a lazy member of the zen club and don't actually clear my desktop, I just click that button in the Windows context menu which hides all the icons from my desktop. I'm comfortable with the knowledge there's a viper's nest of writhing icons and folders under there, just so long as I don't have to look at it.
Yes, this past week we asked you lovely PC Gamer readers: How do you organise your operating system desktop? Because we're obviously convinced that a clean desktop is a clean mind, but wanted to know about how everyone else organises their systems.
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How do you organise your operating system desktop?
Votes (%)
I remove everything from my desktop
I have only a few regularly used icons on the desktop
I neatly organise them in specific areas and folder
I just let the files and shortcuts fall where they may
I just hide the desktop icons, sweeping them under the rug
I use an animated wallpaper, so keep it clear of icons
I use third-party software to organise them
Votes (%) Data
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| I remove everything from my desktop | 26 |
| I have only a few regularly used icons on the desktop | 24 |
| I neatly organise them in specific areas and folder | 20 |
| I just let the files and shortcuts fall where they may | 16 |
| I just hide the desktop icons, sweeping them under the rug | 7 |
| I use an animated wallpaper, so keep it clear of icons | 4 |
| I use third-party software to organise them | 3 |
Adding it all up, a hefty 84% of you are pursuing good desktop hygiene and either clearing it entirely, or at least managing the volume or layout of icons littering your screen.
Though I will say, more concerning is that 16%—a worrying number of you dear readers—are leaving the clutter unchecked. Maybe it's my own moderately fastidious nature, but I thought fewer people would leave their desktops open to the whims of app installers and assorted downloaded files. But then I look at the physical desktop of my own workspace in PC Gamer Towers, and I probably shouldn't be that surprised when I've got random courier invoices on my desk from years ago and random parts of coolers and PCs that have long since gone to the great recycle bin in the sky.
So, okay, maybe I'm a monster in my own way, too. What about the rest of you, how do you organise your desktop? Do you keep it clean and clear or are you free and easy about what happens behind the various windows on your screen? Or do you have tips to share with the rest of us?
This week I want to go back to the recycle bin again, and I'm asking when you last cleared it out.
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