---
title: Tidy up your PC!
author: chris 
date: 2026-02-01
---

As in, move your files to the most appropriate location, so that you can find
them after a long time. Put it there, where you will look first, if you need
access to it.

I get it, it’s really hard to tidy up an over-year-old mess, I am not
just talking about digital data here. And because there are probably more
important things in your life that take up time, you can just skip this
tedious task and use your PC like you used to. Once in a while, you will be
overwhelmed by the sheer mess you created, but fortunately, there are ways to
mitigate the problem, like file searchers. And that is fine. As for many
things, do as you want.

For me, keeping my PC clean was always an important topic. Here you can see my
*home* directory:

```bash
[chris@deskpin:~]$ ls ~
downloads  projects  uni
```

It consists of only three directories, and believe me, the subdirectories are
also very clean! But what do I get from it? First and foremost, I have a good
overview of stuff that is on my PC and especially where it is. Also, I just
have a good feeling when using my PC, because I feel like I understand my
machine.

From my personal experience, this is very rare. Most people I know undervalue
the tidiness of their data on their PCs. One reason I suspect is the
implication of using the Desktop directory on systems that have it.

# Desktop directory

‘In the digital age, the Desktop serves as a central hub for quick access to
files, folders, and shortcuts, making it one of the most frequently used
locations on any computer.’
([computerknown](https://computerknown.com/where-is-desktop-folder-in-windows-11/))
I think this is a good description of what most people would (implicitly)
describe the Desktop as. The real-life analogy works well: You throw things at
the top of the desk, so you can access it quickly again. But people tend to
overmess their desks: After some time, so many things are gathered on the
desk that the amount of time and energy it would take to clean it up is just
not manageable anymore.

And the same goes for the Desktop directory: Temporary text files, downloaded
zip archives and their respective unzipped directories, your photo albums from
the last four trips you went on, all that stuff is lingering around on your
Desktop, and now, you obviously don’t know what to do. Additionally, you don’t
even get the outside pressure to tidy this mess up: While you will be judged
over your mess at home, no one is interested in the (missing) structure of your
files on your PC.

What I describe here is the scenario I was facing, and I think I’m not alone.
But don’t get me wrong, theoretically you **can** have a tidy Desktop. I just
never met a person who has.

# Tidying up all the files

I’ve been using tiling window managers for years now. Starting with i3, I switched to
sway for Wayland, and now I’m trying out niri. And the very first thing I noticed
when messing with i3 was that you cannot create directories on your Desktop.
That got me thinking: All the time after using the Desktop extensively, what
now? And I started to categorise my data and to create a hierarchical structure
for my files.

:::note
I think this is not the natural implication of not having a Desktop. I have
seen plenty of people who use their *home* directory the exact same way I
described before in terminal heavy systems like tiling window managers.
:::

This process can get tedious because every time you have a new file, you have
to actively decide on a place for it. I often found myself stacking up a mess
in my *downloads* or my *home* directory. But before it got too bad, I was
able to tidy up that mess again.

While this sounds hard, I think this process is super rewarding, at least for
me. Especially if you are using your PC daily and have important and personal
data.

**Doesn’t it take an eternity to access a specific file, which may be in an
appropriate, but not quickly accessible, directory?** That’s a valid concern,
which I also had in the beginning. Over time, I tried out various tools for
that purpose, here are my most used ones:

- I use the cd alternative [zoxide](https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide),
  which allows me to change to any directory on my system in bash, based on a
  ranking system that remembers used directories. This can single-handedly
  solve this problem in the scope of the terminal.
- Additionally, I use a simple
  [script](https://git.krinitsin.com/dotfiles.git/blob/main/bin/zathura-fzf)
  that lets me fuzzyfind all my PDFs on my PC and opens the selected one in my
  PDF-viewer. That sets the following mental model in my head: I store the PDFs
  in the thematically best location (for instance
  ~/university/course/week/task/task1.pdf) and only have to know some of the
  context. It doesn’t matter anymore where the file exists.

**Look, you only have three directories in your *home*, so you don’t even have
any data to create a mess with! What’s with photos, job applications, or my
~~il~~legally downloaded video games?** Stuff that doesn’t need to be on my PC
gets moved onto my archive SSD, which is structured the same way. If you don’t
have one, then those directories should also be in your *home*.

**What should I do if I don’t work with the terminal primarily, or don’t use
Linux at all?** Well, the main reason I love Linux so much is its flexibility,
so I don’t have a concrete answer for that. But if I had to use a Windows
system again, I would strictly prohibit myself from putting any data on the
Desktop. Instead, I would structure my files the same way I do now and put
shortcuts for important directories on my Desktop. This reflects the way I use
my PC right now.

A disclaimer in the end: I don’t know why, but the whole process around it is
fun for me. That’s why I’m fine with spending time on this. I know that there
are people who don’t have the time or motivation to do this - or simply don’t
think my reasons are valid for them - and that is obviously fine.

So - Tidy up your PC! But only if you feel the need to.

:::note
*AI-Note: Grammarly was used to fix grammar mistakes.*
:::