Organize Desktop Items

Quick reference

• 00:04 The desktop is a fundamental part of our Windows 11 system.
• 00:08 So it's important to know how to save things off to our desktop and
• 00:12 also how to organize our desktop items.
• 00:14 Now, the desktop is such a fundamental part of Windows 11 because it's simply
• 00:19 the first thing you see when you log in.
• 00:20 As you can see, by looking at mine, we can personalize it by adding an image
• 00:25 in the background which I'll show you how to do later.
• 00:28 But we can also add to it things like files, folders, and obviously we've
• 00:32 already seen that by default on the desktop we have the Recycle Bin.
• 00:36 And the desktop is essentially just a folder.
• 00:40 We've seen when we take a look at File Explorer, so
• 00:42 let's just bring that up again.
• 00:43 Windows Key E, underneath This PC we have a folder called desktop.
• 00:49 And anything that we have saved on our desktop aside from the Recycle Bin is
• 00:53 going to show in this folder.
• 00:55 So just think of it that way,
• 00:57 it's just a big folder that you look at every single day.
• 01:00 Now as I've mentioned, some people really love to store their files and
• 01:04 folders on their desktop.
• 01:05 Now, I can't say that it's something that I do fairly frequently,
• 01:09 occasionally I might put one or maybe two folders on the desktop.
• 01:12 But I'm not somebody who generally tends to add lots of files and
• 01:16 folders onto their desktop.
• 01:17 Personally for me I find it harder to find what I'm looking for
• 01:21 and it also makes my desktop look really messy.
• 01:24 It's also something to bear in mind if you're somebody who maybe attends a lot of
• 01:29 Teams meetings where you share your desktop and
• 01:31 everybody in that meeting can see your desktop, you might not necessarily want
• 01:36 to have specific folders maybe with confidential information in them or
• 01:40 client names, things like that showing.
• 01:42 However, it can be quite good in certain scenarios, so let's make sure
• 01:47 we know how to add items to our desktop and also how to arrange them.
• 01:51 So let's go back to our documents folder and
• 01:53 I'm going to jump into that client's subfolder.
• 01:57 Now, if we go into training tech where we have all of our files,
• 02:00 I can choose to add any of these files onto my desktop and create a shortcut.
• 02:04 Now, we saw how to do this with a folder but not with a file.
• 02:08 The process is pretty much the same.
• 02:10 We can right click on the file, go to show more options,
• 02:15 and then we can say send to desktop, create shortcut.
• 02:20 And there you can see that sitting on there.
• 02:22 Remember this is just a link, it's just a shortcut to the actual file.
• 02:26 Now, if I actually do want to move or copy the file to the desktop as opposed to
• 02:31 having a shortcut to it, I can simply drag and drop.
• 02:34 So let's grab this PowerPoint file, if I click and drag and
• 02:37 drop it onto the desktop, notice it's doing a move.
• 02:40 So it's going to move it from the original location and
• 02:43 it's going to put it on the desktop.
• 02:44 If I hold down control when I drag and drop, it's going to do a copy.
• 02:49 So now I have it on the desktop and also in the folder.
• 02:53 So you can create shortcuts but you can also move and copy files and folders.
• 02:58 Now what about if I'm working inside an application?
• 03:01 Let's launch Word.
• 03:03 So I'm going to press my Window's logo key,
• 03:06 there is Word up here on my pinned list, let's open it up.
• 03:09 I'm just going to create a new blank document.
• 03:13 So if I want to save this file to my desktop, I would go to File,
• 03:18 Save As, I can choose Browse, and then I can select my desktop.
• 03:23 So let's call this Training10, hit enter to save, and
• 03:28 now if I close Word down, there is that document I've just saved to my desktop.
• 03:36 So nice and straightforward.
• 03:37 Now as I mentioned, it is a good idea to limit the amount of files and
• 03:41 folders that you're saving to your desktop.
• 03:43 But if you do have quite a few on there, there are ways that we can organize them.
• 03:49 Now I'm going to close down File Explorer and
• 03:51 I'm going to select everything that I have on my desktop.
• 03:55 Now how can I do that?
• 03:57 Well, if I click on my desktop background and press Cntrl A,
• 04:00 that's going to select everything.
• 04:02 Another way I could do this is to draw a big rectangle around all of the files,
• 04:07 let go, and that's going to select them all as well.
• 04:11 Now, some ways that I can organize these,
• 04:14 I can pick up any individual file and I can drag and drop it elsewhere.
• 04:18 So if I want all of them stored over here, I can simply move them by dragging and
• 04:22 dropping them.
• 04:23 If I want to move multiple I can draw a big rectangle around the files that I
• 04:28 want to move to select them all and then drag and drop them elsewhere.
• 04:33 I can also click on the top one, hold down Shift, click on the bottom one to select
• 04:38 them all and drag them as a three back to their original location.
• 04:42 So a few different ways that we can select files on our desktop.
• 04:45 Now what about if we want to arrange these?
• 04:47 Well if we right click our mouse anywhere on our desktop background,
• 04:51 we do have some sort by options.
• 04:53 So I can choose to sort them by the name, the size, the item type,
• 04:57 or the date modified.
• 04:59 So if I choose size, it's going to rearrange them and
• 05:02 I think I have these ordered with the largest at the bottom because my
• 05:06 Recycle Bin definitely is the largest file here.
• 05:09 If I right click and go to sort by, maybe I want to arrange them by name, and
• 05:13 it's going to put those into chronological order.
• 05:16 So two, three, five, then ten.
• 05:18 Now, as I start to add more and more items to my desktop, if I've sorted these
• 05:23 into a specific order, anything new that I had won't necessarily be sorted.
• 05:28 So if I was to add a file called training one, that will probably appear at
• 05:33 the bottom here as opposed to at the top in the correct sort by order.
• 05:37 So what I like to do is I like to make sure that I have auto arrange icons
• 05:41 turned on.
• 05:42 And we get to that from the view menu just here.
• 05:45 So when we auto arrange icons, it's basically going to keep that order so
• 05:50 anything new I add will be automatically rearranged into the right order on
• 05:55 my desktop.
• 05:56 Now, I will say with that auto arrange icons selected,
• 06:00 this can be a pain in some scenarios.
• 06:02 If you have a very specific way that you want to organize your files and
• 06:06 you have that auto arrange icons turned on,
• 06:09 it's always going to try and sort them based on what you've selected in sort by.
• 06:14 So if you need them to be in a very specific order and it's not working for
• 06:20 you, it would be a good idea to toggle off auto arrange icons.

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