Common Misconceptions About the Desktop

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me help you better understand what it means when we refer to the Desktop on a Mac. 

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When we talk about using your Mac there are actually three different things that are referred to all the time as the Desktop or a Desktop. I'm going to refer to them as THE Desktop with an emphasis on THE. The Desktop FOLDER with an emphasis on FOLDER, and Desktop SPACES with an emphasis on SPACES. These are all related but they mean different things and understanding what they are and how they are different is one of the keys to understanding your Mac. 

So first let's start here. This is what you may call THE Desktop. You see a lot of different things here and there are actually many different layers. In addition to that if you look in the Finder, either under iCloud Drive or in your Home folder, you're going to see a folder called Desktop. The proper way to refer to this is the Desktop FOLDER. Finally, if you were to use Mission Control, like I'm going to use Control Up Arrow to bring up Mission Control, you'll see at the top Desktop 1 and if you add another by clicking the Plus button to the right you'll see Desktop 2. These are Desktop SPACES. They are often thought of as multiple desktops, or having more than one Desktop. But in fact there is only one Desktop, but you can have multiple desktop spaces. I'll explain how these work as well. 

First let's talk about what makes up THE Desktop. There are actually many different layers that go into building all of this you see here. So, for instance, let's start with the bottom layer. This is just the image that's on the desktop. It's called the Desktop Background or more recently Apple has taken to calling it the Desktop Wallpaper. It's either something Apple provides including some animated ones, or it's a picture that you select. It could even be a solid color. So this is just the image and it's the bottom layer of THE Desktop. On top of that you'll also see Desktop Widgets. This is new in macOS Sonoma and you don't necessarily have to have any Desktop Widgets. But if you do that kind of makes up the next layer that sits on top of the Desktop Wallpaper. On top of that we'll see some icons that represent locations or drives. 

So, for instance, here on this Desktop we can see the Macintosh Hard Drive at the top right. If we actually go to Finder, Settings and then you look under General you could see the four different types of items that could appear here. So you've got those things in that layer. The next layer shows you Files and Folders. This is actually the Contents of the Desktop folder. So if we look on this desktop we can see there are four files here. If we look in iCloud Drive, which is where we have the Desktop FOLDER in this case, and I look in the Desktop FOLDER I can see those same four files. So these are in two different locations. This is just one location and you see the same files two different ways. So, any files you put in the Desktop FOLDER are going to appear on the Desktop in that Files & Folders layer. If I were to do something, like let's say select this file here and then delete it you could see how it's gone from here, because it's only one location. The layer here showing your Files & Folders is the same as this Desktop FOLDER. It's one location just two different ways to view it. So you've got that layer there as well. 

On top of that you've got the final layer which includes any App windows that you have opened. So this could be Finder windows from the Finder App or any windows from any app you're using. Those will make up the top layer of THE Desktop. 

So let's look at some common misconceptions. It's often said that when you place Files & Folders on the Desktop that they are on the Desktop, as in that's their actual location. But the real location is here in the Desktop FOLDER. You're simple seeing the contents of the Desktop FOLDER in the Finder and also in a layer here on THE Desktop at the same time. So if you want to be accurate when you add a file or folder to the Desktop it's getting added to the Desktop FOLDER which you can also see on THE Desktop. Also keep in mind that the only special thing about the Desktop Folder is that you can see these files as a layer on THE Desktop. You could put the same files in the Documents Folder. It's just another location on your hard drive. It only gives you a little bit of convenience to actually access the files from the desktop whereas in the Documents folder you don't have that bit of convenience. But on the other side it also creates a little bit more of a messy work environment as you're going to see these on your desktop as you're working in other windows. That's why I prefer not to put Files and Folders on the desktop at all and leave my Desktop Folder completely empty and just have all my files and folders in my Documents folder.

Now misconception number two is similar. It's that hard drives and other locations are not actually on the desktop. These are just shortcuts to get there. So if I double click on the Mackintosh Hard Drive here it opens up Finder Window and shows me Mackintosh HD. But I don't need to have that there. That's just a convenient way to get to it. If I were to go in the Finder and create a new Finder window and then go, say, to the computer level I could see the top level here, see all of the drives that could appear here and I can easily get to the same location. So these icons here are just basically a way to quickly access different drives at other locations.  They aren't actually on the Desktop. That is not their location. 

Now also App Windows, themselves like this Finder Window here and this TextEdit Window here, aren't necessarily on THE Desktop. They are kind of floating above it. They are not actually Desktop elements but things above the Desktop. 

That brings us to our fourth misconception. That's about using Mission Control and SPACES. So, if I were to bring up Mission Control and I've got this one Desktop Space here, if I click the Plus button it's not correct to say I've created another Desktop. You haven't! You still only have one Desktop. What you've done here is created another Desktop SPACE. So on this Desktop Space I can see the same Desktop background, the same layer with hard drives and other locations, the same layer with Files and Folders, the same layer with widgets. But I'll see different App Windows. So if I bring up the Reminders Window here, for instance, there's the Reminders window. If I go back into Mission Control and look at the Desktops you can see I've got the Reminders Window in this Desktop Space and I've got these two windows, Finder and TextEdit, in this Desktop Space. So it's not correct to say that I've got two Desktops. I've actually got one Desktop but two Desktop Spaces. The only difference between these two spaces is the App Windows that float above it. Otherwise the Desktop itself is the same. It is showing you the one and only Desktop in both of these locations.

If you take a look at the different layers here you can see all the layers are actually the same across both Desktop Spaces. You simply have different App Windows every time you create a new Desktop. I'm often asked about things like can I have different files or folders on different desktops. Of course you don't have different desktops. There is only one. Desktop SPACES only have one Desktop shared between them and that includes the layer with all the files and folders. So the idea of having say these four files here on this Desktop Space and then going to this Desktop Space and having different ones doesn't make sense because you're see the same layer, the same contents of the same Desktop Folder. 

Think about how it would work if it was the other way. If you created a second Desktop Space and had different files and folders in it you couldn't just have one Desktop Folder, like this. You'd have to have two or three or four or how ever many Desktop Spaces you had, you'd have to have a different Desktop Folders with the contents that would be shown on each Desktop Space. In that case what would happen if you would simply close a Desktop, like this. Would those files then be deleted, would they be gone, would they be merged back with this desktop folder? It would get pretty complex pretty fast. Remember Mission Control, no matter how many Desktop Spaces you create there is only one Desktop shared between all of them and simply different App windows that can float on top of that Desktop in each space. So it makes it any easier when using Mission Control don't think of this as Desktop 1 and Desktop 2. Think of this as Desktop SPACE 1, Desktop Space 2 and so on. 

So in summary remember when using the term Desktop to specifically think of whether you are talking about THE Desktop, the Desktop FOLDER, or Desktop SPACES. Remember how they are all related. Hope you find this useful. Thanks for watching.