Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
4.01 organize-desktop-items - Exercise.docx44 KB 4.01 organize-desktop-items - Exercise solution.docx
41.3 KB
Quick reference
Organize Desktop Items
Learn how to manage and organize items on the desktop.
When to use
We organize items on our desktop to keep things tidy and keep our files, folders, and applications in order.
Instructions
The Desktop is a fundamental part of Windows 11. It's the first thing we see when we log in. We can personalize the desktop background with a photo of our choice and use the desktop to store files, folders, and shortcuts to applications. The desktop is also where we go to access the Recycle Bin.
To quickly minimize all open applications and see the desktop, press Win+D.
The Desktop Folder
The Desktop is essentially just a folder.
- Open File Explorer.
- Click on the Desktop folder.
Here we can see any items we have saved to our desktop except the Recycle Bin.
Move and Save Items to the Desktop
Sometimes we might want to move or save items to our desktop for quick access. We can create shortcuts to folders and applications and save files.
- In File Explorer, click on the Documents folder.
- Select one or more files and drag and drop them to the desktop.
Note, when moving items to the desktop, we can drag them to the desktop folder in File Explorer or we can drag and drop them directly onto our desktop background.
Organize Files on the Desktop
It's a good idea to limit the number of files and folders we have on our desktop. Too many and the desktop starts to look messy and unorganized. Try to keep the items stored on the desktop to only essential files and folders. Think about pinning applications to the taskbar or start menu instead of creating shortcuts on the desktop.
If we do have a set of important files on the desktop, we can organize these into a folder.
- Press Win+D to go to the desktop.
- Right-click the mouse anywhere on the desktop (not on a file or folder).
- Select New.
- Click Folder.
- Type a name for the folder.
- Drag and drop the files from the desktop to the new folder.
We can drag and drop files and folders to re-position them. To arrange files and folders on the desktop alphabetically by name, by size, by type or by date modified, right-click the mouse and choose Sort.
Select Desktop Items
We can select multiple items on the desktop using a few methods.
- Hold down the CTRL key and select.
- Hold down the SHIFT key and select.
- Use the mouse to draw a big box around the items to select.
- Press CTRL+A to select everything.
Auto Arrange
It can be helpful to toggle on Auto arrange to keep desktop items neat and organized.
- Right-click on the desktop.
- Click View.
- Select Auto arrange icons.
The items currently on the desktop and all new items added to the desktop will be arranged according to whatever has been selected in Sort.
- Right-click on the desktop.
- Click Sort.
Hints & tips
- If we find ourselves unable to arrange our desktop items using Sort it might be that Auto Arrange is turned on. Right-click, go to View, and toggle off Auto arrange icons.
- 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.
Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.