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You are here: Home / Mac / Mac OS X Desktop Icons Rearranged or Unsorted After Restart; Fix

Mac OS X Desktop Icons Rearranged or Unsorted After Restart; Fix

By SK 3 comments Last updated March 7, 2016

Mac OS X desktop icons may spontaneously rearrange or become unsorted (scrambled) after restarting or force quitting and restarting the Finder. In these cases, items lose their alphabetical or other sorting, and may scatter to various parts of the desktop.

Fix

You may be able to resolve this issue by deleting the .DS_Store file on your Desktop. This is a hidden file, but it can be deleted with the utility DS_Store_Cleaner. Alternatively, you can use these instructions to delete the file.

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Show 3 Comments

  1. Susie says

    August 17, 2018 at 5:46 PM

    Thanks with regard to supplying this type of well put together knowledge.

    Reply
  2. ApeX says

    June 18, 2011 at 1:48 AM

    Also:

    Rearranging Icons on the Desktop
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2131820?start=0&tstart=0

    Reply
  3. ApeX says

    June 18, 2011 at 1:43 AM

    No way. It does NOT work at all. See (also for Mac OS X 10.6.7):

    Desktop items get unsorted after cold boot on Snow Leopard 10.6.2
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2335032?start=0&tstart=0

    Reply

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