Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
So, periodically (about once every couple of weeks), you should tidy up your desktop so that you can find
things easily and keep the desktop a useful tool. You can do a couple of things:
1. Get rid of any icons you absolutely don't need on the desktop.
• If you're still using the icon, move it to the appropriate folder in your user account.
• If you don't need the icon anymore, off to the Trash it goes.
2. Organize the remaining icons.
• If you just want to organize the icons by name, click the desktop and then choose View → Sort By →
Name (or press Control+Option+ +1).
• If you want the icons sorted and aligned, click the desktop and then choose View → Clean Up By →
Name (or press Option+ +1). This command lines up all the icons in neat columns and rows, based on
the desktop's invisible grid, and sorts the icons by name.
• If you want to apply a label to related icons, select them, right-click the selection, and then click a label
color. You can then sort the icons by label: Click the desktop and then choose View → Clean Up By →
Label (or press Option+ +7).
Deleting unneeded files
I mentioned earlier that a neglected Trash folder can eat up a lot of hard drive real estate. If you're minding
MacBook Air's hard drive and you find that you're running low on free space, you should empty the Trash as a
first step. You should also uninstall any programs you no longer use, as described in the next section.
Other than that, I suggest periodically rummaging through the folders in your user account to look for docu-
ments, downloads, and other files that you don't need. It's a good idea to sort the files by size (choose View →
Sort By → Size, or press Control+Option+ +6) so that you can start by deleting the largest files you no longer
use. Send these items to the Trash, and when you finish, empty the Trash to recover the hard drive space.
However, you should also consider backing up your system before you start trashing a lot of files.
When deleting files, all folders in your user account are fair game, except for the Library folder (~/Library). Messing
with the wrong files in this folder can cause MacBook Air, or your programs, to behave erratically or crash. There-
fore, I highly recommend leaving the Library folder alone when purging old files.
Uninstalling unused applications
To free up some room on MacBook Air's hard drive, get rid of any installed applications that you no longer use.
The great thing about uninstalling Mac software is that it's just so darn easy. If you've ever used Windows, you
know that removing a program is a long, involved process that always requires a large number of mouse clicks.
In OS X, however, the uninstall process couldn't be simpler:
