Folders move around on desktop

Have you tried Finder > View Menu > Desktop: arrange by none, or grid or whatever suits you?
If you have the correct settings and they don't stick, then it's probably a corrupt Finder pref.

go to Users/yourname/Library/Preferences and trash these two files:
com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

Then, restart.
(You will have to reset a few finder prefs the way you like them.)



-mj

I don't like to use the snap to grid option. There is a shareware program called Desktility that costs I think just $5. You set your desktop the way you want and then Desktiliy takes a picture. Then when you reboot and everything is all over, you just hit restore and everything is back.

Mine have been arranging themselves right-to-left for ages.

Where is your dock?

Perhaps you had a 3rd party app that provided custom desktop arrangement and that app stopped working under 10.6.x....

This drives me crazy too. I've always appreciated the Mac way of keeping files and folders EXACTLY where I've put them, regardless of what happens. Now, every so often all of the icons are bunched up on the right side of the desktop. It happens every couple of weeks, with no apparent patterns or any kind of relation to any action I've taken. Extremely frustrating.

I also have a couple of folders that I like to always open in a certain view – e.g. icons with a yellow background. The random rearrangement also screws up that preference and makes my folder open up in column view.

I just ran into this same problem with my SL 10.6.1 and when I selected the Finder and picked (from the menu bar) View+-->Show View Options+ the +Arrange By+ section was <none>. I changed it to arrange by Kind and it didn't take it (though I did a one-time arrange by kind). I then opened a new Finder window, navigated to my User folder, selected the Desktop folder form there, and went back to View+-->Show View Options+ and picked arrange by Kind. I also checked the +Always Open in Icon View+ box. Now it works as it should and my desktop remains organized.

Has anyone found any further fix for this?

I'm having the same issues (using new 27" iMac), though I noticed upon boot my desktop icons arrange by name/alphabetic on startup along the right side.

I've checked all the "show desktop options" and set this to http://grab.by/1jvB "snap to grid" with just the simple options set.

I've tried arranging by Kind and all other options but it still reverts to 'by name' (I believe since I have Mac HD at the top right and other named files/drives/folders along the right so it looks to be by name)

Its rather annoying having it auto arrange each time since varying icons and files are on my desktop each day.

I've deleted the plist files as previously mentioned, repaired permissions, I've also tried the previous poster (craigminah) suggested method all to no avail...

Thanks for any further help if anyone has any suggestions or otherwise without resorting to apps to do this, I know it works on my MacBook Pro and Mac Pro with fresh SNL 10.6 installs.

I believe I fixed it.

I used an app "Cocktail" ( http://www.maintain.se/cocktail) and managed to clear all User Caches with this software (I'm sure you can do it with Apple scripts or Terminal Commands) I prefer GUI cos its easier.

Anyway, I ran it cleared Caches, and rebooted, seems all working as I want it to now.

Hopefully that helps those with similar issues.

Click on the Desktop then click "Show View Options" in the "View" menu.
Set "Arrange by" to "None" or "Snap to Grid".

Bump:

I'm also experiencing this issue, and I installed SL from scratch with no upgrade.

Anyone any thoughts on this is it very annoying?

Neil.

How many users on the computer?