cluttered desktop please help

[chris curran]

I've just accidently dragged 600 photos onto the desktop. I am having trouble deleting anything, can't drag into trash beachball keeps appearing ,everything is slow. Does any one have any suggestions?😕 😕

 

[Plumbstone]

If you've just done it you could always try z -undo.

 

[Ubuntu]

Hmm.

If the previous suggestion doesn't work, try opening a Finder window, and then navigating to the Desktop (through the Finder), and when done, hit Apple + 2 (to change the view to list). Then select all, and press Apple + Backspace (delete, will send to trash).

If that locks up, try it with Apple + 3 (column view).

 

[epochblue]

If you're trying to delete the pictures, you could always try starting in Single User mode and deleting them the CLI way 🙂

 

[Avaritia]

Do you have more then one administrator account? If you do, then log into that account and enable your root user then login as it, navigate to your /users/yourname folder and open it up, go to the desktop and move the pictures.

Alternatively, if you have another computer you can also boot into Firewire Target Disk Mode and then mount the drive on another computer and do the same thing.

 

[dukeblue91]

Why don't you just click on your desktop than go to the top, click on edit and choose select all and drag your pic's to where you want them.
Simple as that.
But you will have to wait a little till your beach ball stops spinning, so don't try anything until than.

 

[Avaritia]

Why don't you just click on your desktop than go to the top, click on edit and choose select all and drag your pic's to where you want them.
Simple as that.
But you will have to wait a little till your beach ball stops spinning, so don't try anything until than.

A lot of the time that won't work, usually when you've got that many items on the desktop, the computer will become completely unresponsive and even after an hour you will still see that spinning beachball.