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Everything you need to set up Clean Desktop, in the order you will need it.

Installing Clean Desktop

Open the downloaded .dmg and drag Clean Desktop into your Applications folder. Launch it from Applications.

Clean Desktop is a menu bar app. It has no Dock icon and no main window, so after launching, look for the monitor icon near the clock in the top right of your screen. Clicking it opens everything the app does.

Granting access to your Desktop

The first time you clean, macOS asks whether Clean Desktop can access files in your Desktop folder. Click Allow. This prompt comes from macOS rather than from the app, and Clean Desktop cannot move anything without it.

If you clicked Don't Allow by mistake, open System Settings › Privacy & Security › Files and Folders, find Clean Desktop, and turn Desktop Folder on.

Choosing where cleaned files go

Open Settings › General. The archive folder is where everything moves to. It defaults to Documents › Desktop Archive, and Change lets you pick anywhere on your Mac, including an external drive.

Two settings decide how files are filed once they get there:

• Group files by month (2026-03 March) or by day (2026-03-14).
• Sort by when the file was created, when it was last changed, or when the desktop was cleaned. Creation date is the default, so a screenshot taken in March lands in March even if you clean it in September.

The Example line in Settings shows the exact path a file would take, using whatever you have selected.

Cleaning your desktop

Click the menu bar icon and press Clean Now. The popover tells you how many items are waiting before you start, and what happened after.

If the button is greyed out, your desktop is already clear.

Setting up automatic cleaning

Open Settings › Schedule and switch on Clean automatically. Choose daily or weekly, and a time.

Automatic cleaning only happens while Clean Desktop is running, so turn on Open at login in the same panel. If your Mac is asleep when a clean is due, it runs as soon as you wake it rather than skipping that day.

The Status line shows when the next clean will happen.

Keeping a file on your desktop

Give it a Finder tag. Right-click the file, choose a colour, and Clean Desktop will leave it alone until you remove the tag. Named tags work the same way as colour dots.

The menu bar popover shows how many tagged files it is skipping, so you can tell the difference between a file being pinned and a file being missed.

To ignore tags entirely, turn off Keep tagged files on the desktop in Settings › General.

Undoing a clean

Open the menu bar popover and click Undo last clean. Every file returns to exactly where it was, and any month folder left empty is removed.

Settings › History lists the last 60 cleans, with the files each one moved. Undo is available from there too.

Leaving a tip

Clean Desktop is free, with nothing to unlock. If you want to say thanks, choose Leave a Tip in the menu bar popover, or go to cleanmacdesktop.com/tip. Tips go through Ko-fi.

Updating

Clean Desktop checks for new versions once a day and asks before downloading anything. You can check immediately from the menu bar, or turn automatic checks off in Settings › Updates.

Uninstalling

Quit Clean Desktop from the menu bar, then drag it from Applications to the Trash. Your archive folder and everything in it stays exactly where it is.