Hide everything on your Mac desktop to reduce clutter

Open up Terminal ([Command]+[Space] and type “terminal” to find it), and then run the following commands (for each command, copy and paste it to the command line and press [Enter] to run it):

1. defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false
2. killall Finder

You can now close Terminal. Notice your clutter-free desktop.

Why this is useful:

Hiding all your desktop icons reduces visual clutter, which can improve focus and an overall sense of well-being. It also brings out the beauty of your Mac, as you can now appreciate those beautiful desktop pictures (when your open apps aren’t covering it up, that is). With this tip, you can still save things to the desktop as usual, and you can still find those things in the Desktop folder using Finder. They just won’t clutter your view anymore!

Other notes:

1. You only have to do this once; it’s a setting that will persist.
2. You can always reverse this. Just change the false to true in the commands above.