How to Clean Up a Folder?

[Alameda]

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, you could hold down the Option Key and choose “Clean Up” in the Finder, and all of the icons in a window would be arranged together as tightly as possible, with no gaps.

But when I try it today, the icons just snap to the nearest spot on the grid. Is there way to Clean Up All in the Finder?

 

[Tagbert]

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, you could hold down the Option Key and choose “Clean Up” in the Finder, and all of the icons in a window would be arranged together as tightly as possible, with no gaps.

But when I try it today, the icons just snap to the nearest spot on the grid. Is there way to Clean Up All in the Finder?

Choose "Clean up by" and one of the properties like name, date created, etc. It will reorder and compact the icons. Basic cleanup is just align to grid.

 

[Gregg2]

Option key? Was that with a one-button mouse? With a two-button mouse, a right click will do that.

If the Finder Window is set to Sort By: Snap to Grid, then the behavior you describe will be the result. You can change that from the same pop-up list.

 

[Alameda]

Option key? Was that with a one-button mouse? With a two-button mouse, a right click will do that.

If the Finder Window is set to Sort By: Snap to Grid, then the behavior you describe will be the result. You can change that from the same pop-up list.

It used to be that Option-Clean Up would move all the icons as close together as possible. This is no longer a feature and instead (as I just learned) we pick "Clean Up By".