"Clean Up by Date" on Desktop?

[bunnyfly]

Hello - is there a way to get a menu option for "Clean Up by Date" on the Gnome Desktop?

Clean Up By Name is only so useful sometimes...it would be nice if there were more options. Thanks!
[bunnyfly]

[bunnyfly]

Anybody?

[briandu]

Apologies to sound pedantic, what do you mean exactly by cleanup by date in Linux. Windows has this to clear out all the stuff the uninstallers left behind or it uses it to muck up your desktop because you did not use the icon for a while.

Please elaborate as most folks using Linux find this pretty foreign.:smile:

[bunnyfly]

It isn't a Windows thing, and it isn't about (un)installing. In Gnome, if you right click on the desktop, there's an option to "Clean up by Name." It means to sort and arrange the icons by name. I want to sort my desktop icons by date.

Thanks,
[bunnyfly]

[kevwalsh]

Me too. I want to sort by file creation time.

[Xing_Ling]

me too. :(

[mexlinux]

No it's not availabe in GNOME, only in kDE

[jackpipe]

More importantly, can we protect this option, and maybe offer an "undo"?

I have about 150 icons on my desktop, and I arrange them manually into related groups. I also don't auto-align/space the icons, so I can manually place them right next to each other to improve density - it works very nicely when you have a bunch of images all arranged into a kind of group mosaic.

I accidentally hit the "arrange by name" the other day, and bam - there goes my organized desktop. Half the icons were all scrunched up over the top of each other at the right of the screen, because there wasn't enough room for the sparse columns that "clean by name" arranges things into. A complete mess in other words, and there is no "undo". Bummer.

Please make this option reversible, or a little more difficult to get to accidentally, by maybe making it a second level menu - ie the top level would be "clean up icons", and then a second menu of "by name", "by date", "by type" or whatever.

[Chemical Imbalance]

If you have that many icons, you might as well organize them in categorical folders.

[asmoore82]

Me too. I want to sort by file creation time.

Traditional UNIX filesystems, Linux's included, actually don't store file creation time at all.

[asmoore82]

This sounds like a very valid feature request to me;
but as a workaround, you could take advantage of "Places -> Desktop"

[jackpipe]

If you have that many icons, you might as well organize them in categorical folders.
Yes, a reasonable suggestion, but to me, the hierarchical filesystem is dead. Now, did I put the document about IBM storage systems under "computers", or under "infrastructure project for widget-co"? And what was it's name again? Ah yes, a redbook, sg246423.pdf. Of course.

Even remembering app names can be elusive at times - I just like to have all the stuff I use, laid out in front of me where I can see it at a glance, with the icon showing it's content, and where I can use my "spacial memory" to find it quickly.

It would be really nice to be able to spread it out across workspaces - ie have a different set of desktop icons in each workspace. I've seen that discussed, but I think rejected on some technical grounds.

[sirald66]

The clean by name has no utility for me, but clean by date is exactly how I'm wanting to see files on my desktop. Or better, an option to clean by filetype and then date.

Any config edits or 3rd party options for this need?

[1010001er]

I'd like to add my name to the list of heirarchically-challenged people who would really like Ubuntu to "clean by date." Over the course of a week my desktop inevitably clutters with multiple revisions of multiple documents, often improperly titled by hurried colleagues. It's frequently important to know which documents I received most recently, and "clean by date," admittedly a ******* crutch, is the perfect answer.

[nickG4000]

Hi

I'm wanting to arrange by type. Someone on another post that is now closed for whatever reason said to open the desktop folder and do it via Edit >Preferences ... but that only affects the open folder and not the desktop itself.

Is the standard install Desktop: Unity, Nautilus, Gnome, or what?

[oldos2er]

Please start a new thread for your question; this one's quite old.