Can’t Find Your Desktop Files? Let Me Show You How to Harness the Power of macOS Mojave Stacks

Are you constantly searching for your important files on your cluttered desktop? Have no fear! I’m here to share a nifty trick that will help you organize your files effortlessly using macOS Mojave Stacks.

Have you ever experienced the frustration of not being able to find a file on your desktop? Believe me, I’ve been there. The clutter can be overwhelming, making it difficult to locate what you need when you need it.

Well, with macOS Mojave Stacks, you can say goodbye to the desktop chaos and hello to an organized and streamlined workspace.

So, how does it work? Let me break it down for you.

When you activate Stacks, all your files on the desktop automatically arrange themselves into neat little piles based on file type. Documents neatly stack together, images group together, and so on. It’s like magic!

Now, I know what you might be thinking – how will I find the file I need if they’re all stacked together? Don’t worry, my friend, macOS Mojave has got you covered.

With just a click, you can expand a stack and reveal all the files within it. Need that important spreadsheet ASAP? No problem! Simply click on the stack labeled “Documents” and watch as it expands, giving you access to all your important documents in an instant.

But wait, there’s more! You can also customize Stacks to suit your preferences. Click on the desktop, go to “View” in the menu bar, and select “Use Stacks.” From there, you can choose whether to sort your stacks by name, date, or file type. It’s all about making your workflow as efficient as possible.

I can hear you wondering, what about new files? Will they end up cluttering my desktop again? Fear not, dear friend. macOS Mojave is one step ahead of you.

Whenever you download a new file or create a document, macOS Mojave automatically adds it to the appropriate stack. No more cluttering up your once tidy desktop!

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to bid farewell to the chaos and welcome the simplicity of macOS Mojave Stacks. Say hello to a cleaner, more organized desktop that will save you time and frustration.

Give it a try, and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Trust me, your future self will thank you.

Have you ever taken a look at your Mac desktop and thought, “What a mess?” I mean, files everywhere, just scattered around with no rhyme or reason. It’s enough to make your head spin. But fear not, my friends, because I have some good news for you. If you decide to upgrade to macOS Mojave, you’ll find a nifty little feature called desktop stacks that might just save your sanity.

An untidy desktop in macOS High Sierra and earlier.

Here’s the deal: Stacks are like magic folders that can help you keep your files in check. They’ve been hangin’ out in the macOS Dock for a while, but now they’re makin’ moves to the desktop in macOS Mojave. The cool thing is, these folders aren’t real. Yep, you heard me right. Stacks aren’t actual folders in the guts of your Mac’s file system. Instead, they gather up all your files and show ’em to you in a neat little expanding folder.

Hey there! Let’s talk about how macOS Mojave can help you keep your desktop tidy and organized with its awesome stacks feature.

So, maybe you’ve upgraded to Mojave and you’re feeling a bit puzzled because your desktop files have mysteriously disappeared. Don’t fret! They’re actually just hanging out behind the scenes, thanks to the new stacks feature. Now, how about I show you how to use desktop stacks in Mojave and transform your desktop into a productive hub?

Managing Desktop Stacks in macOS Mojave

To activate stacks on your desktop, simply go to the View menu and choose the option Use Stacks. You can also right-click (or Control-click) on the desktop and select the same option from the menu. It’s easy!

How to Use Stacks

Once you turn on desktop stacks, you can easily access the contents of each stack. Just click on the stack icon, and all the files inside will appear below. If there are too many files to fit in one column, they will wrap to the next column. Your other desktop items will be temporarily pushed aside to make room. Clicking on the stack again will close it and put the icons back where they were.

By default, stacks are grouped by type. This means that all your screenshots will be in one stack, your Photoshop documents in another, and your PDFs in yet another. Any files that don’t fit into a specific category will be displayed individually.
But you can change this grouping. Just use the “Group Stacks By” feature in the View or right-click menus. Here are the options for grouping stacks:

• Group by Type (Control-Command-2)
• Group by Date Last Opened (Control-Command-3)
• Group by Date Added (Control-Command-4)
• Group by Date Modified (Control-Command-5)
• Group by Date Created (no default shortcut)
• Group by Tags (Control-Command-7)

If you choose to group by a date-based category like “Date Created,” your stacks will change from being grouped by file type to being grouped by different date ranges (like last 7 days, last 30 days, or a specific month). If you choose “Date Modified” or “Date Last Opened,” your files will automatically move to the appropriate stack as their conditions change.

Stacks for Messy People

So, you know how Apple introduced something called desktop stacks to help keep your Mac desktop neat and tidy? Well, guess what? It turns out that some of us actually like having a messy desktop. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay. But here’s the thing: even if you want a messy desktop, stacks can still be helpful in some ways. They can actually assist you with organizing your files manually, believe it or not.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re one of those people with a messy desktop who wants to keep it that way. But at the same time, you want to quickly find and move all your Photoshop files to a project folder, or round up all the files older than 30 days and move them to an archive folder. Well, with Mojave desktop stacks, you can achieve that. All you need to do is turn stacks on by using the keyboard shortcut Control-Command-0, organize the stacks based on your desired criteria, and then right-click (or Control-click) on the resulting stack.

From there, you have some options to choose from. You can move all the items in the stack into a new folder, trash them, add them to Dropbox or another file sharing service, compress them into a ZIP archive, or share them via Mail, Messages, AirDrop, or any other enabled macOS Sharing protocol. Once you’re done dealing with the files, simply turn stacks back off and go back to your messy desktop. It may still be messy, but at least it’s messy in the exact way you want it to be.
Just a quick reminder: to use all the keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this article, you need to have Finder selected as the active application. You can check this by making sure the word Finder is displayed in the menu bar next to the Apple logo in the upper-left corner of your screen.