How to undo Cleanup pressed by mistake on desktop

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Level 1

9 points

How to undo Cleanup pressed by mistake on desktop

Hello

I was wondering if anyone can help me with this. I had quite a bit saved on the desktop. Was going to change the desktop background and by error pressed this button-"clean up my mac" which is just below it. It all of a sudden kind of multiplied all the files on the desktop and the background became full and almost nothing can be seen except with all the files repeating themselves. I restarted the mac but nothing is happening and it still stays the same. On finder in the desktop section each file is single and not duplicated. I have tried to clean up by name etc but nothing is happening. Not sure if anyone has any tricks.

I have MacOS High Sierra

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Aug 1, 2020 3:14 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Old Toad

Level 10

207,829 points

Aug 2, 2020 11:59 AM in response to mmy2

Have you tried the "undo" command? ⌘+ z

Now that the horse is out of the barn it's wise to not have that many files/folder on the desktop. Put them in folders in the Documents folder and put an alias file to the overall containing folder on the Desktop. Open the alias file when you want access to them. This prevents accidental deletion of files/folders from the Desktop and other accidents like you're experiencing.

You can go to your Home/User folder and select the Desktop folder. In it you can use the List view and begin adding them to a Folder in the Documents folder.

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Answer 2

mmy2 Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 2, 2020 10:58 PM in response to Old Toad

Thanks for the reply and suggestion. Yes I did try the undo command-(command and Z) but it didn't work. Not sure if anyone else has any other suggestions but will have to work on creating another folder and transferring them.

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Answer 3

mmy2 Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 1, 2020 10:19 PM in response to Z_B-B

Thanks for the reply. No software. The default mac software when you right click- I pressed the "clean up" button by mistake instead of the "change desktop background"

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Answer 4

Z_B-B

Level 2

296 points

Aug 1, 2020 9:51 PM in response to mmy2

What is the name of the software you installed ?

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How to undo Cleanup pressed by mistake on desktop

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