How to automatically clean up your Mac Desktop

Short answer: macOS can’t clean the Desktop by itself. You can send new screenshots to another folder (⌘⇧5 › Options › Save to), hide the mess with Use Stacks, and clear old files by hand, or use an app that moves old screenshots and downloads out of the way on a schedule.

Every screenshot you take lands on your Desktop with a name like Screenshot 2026-10-04 at 10.14.32 AM.png. A few weeks later there are hundreds of them, and Downloads is no better: installers you used once, PDFs you opened once, zips you already unpacked.

Here’s how to tame both, with what macOS gives you and with an app.

1. See where your screenshots go

Press ⌘⇧5, open Options, and look under Save to. The Desktop is the default. You can check it from Terminal too:

defaults read com.apple.screencapture location

If that prints an error, no custom folder is set, so screenshots go to the Desktop (unless Save to is set to Clipboard or an app).

2. Move them out of the way

To save screenshots in their own folder, pick Other Location… in that same Options menu, or:

mkdir -p ~/Pictures/Screenshots
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots

The Desktop stays clean, but the pile just moves to another folder.

3. Use Stacks

Right-click the Desktop and choose Use Stacks. macOS groups files by kind, so 300 screenshots look like one. It hides the mess; it doesn’t clear it.

4. Clean up Downloads

In Finder, sort Downloads by Date Added and drag the old installers (.dmg, .pkg) to the Trash once the app is installed. Zips you’ve already opened can go too, since the folder next to them has the contents.

5. Or let it happen by itself

Attic is a small menu bar app that does all of this on its own, every day:

It never deletes anything. Files move to ~/Attic, organized by month, and come back with one click. Get Attic.

More: Where do screenshots go on a Mac · How to clean up the Downloads folder