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Desktop icons rearrange themselves after restart

This is my first question ever on Apple Support Communities. I have been a long time mac user and usually solve all my problems by reading discussion on Forums and searching on Google. But for the first time, nothing works to solve my problem...

Around 75% of the time, when I restart my Mac all the icons on my desktop get rearranged to the right. This might not seem like a major problem, but it is "VERY VERY VERY" annoying. It has gotten to the point where I stopped "Shutting Down" my computer and just put it to "Sleep" so I don't lose the position of my icons.

I tried everything I could find on the Web!! Nothing works 😟

- I have repaired permissions.

- I have removed the com.apple.desktop.plist and com.apple.finder.plist files.

- I have also looked at the settings under show view options in the finder and they look fine.

My setup:

- MacBook Pro (2.66 Intel Core i7) connected to an Apple LED Cinema Display (24)

- Mac OSX 10.6.7

I am not the only one with this problem. Some of my friends with Macs are having the same issue.

Apple, please fix this in an OSX update! 😮

➕ Any suggestion!??

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7), Apple LED Cinema Display (24)

Posted on May 5, 2011 1:33 PM

Top-ranking reply

ds store

Level 7

30,815 points

Posted on May 5, 2011 1:42 PM

I got a possible solution, lets nuke everything deep in the system and perhaps this wll catch the little gremlin!

Download the free OnyX for your OS X version here:

http://www.titanium.free.fr/index.php

Now run all the maintence, cleaning and that sort of stuff you can find.

You can cancel the reboot to do another cleaning etc., but you must reboot at the end.

Once rebooted, see how that works.

Edit: did you Finder > View > View Options > Arange By "none"??

View in context

24 replies

baltwo

Level 9

62,374 points

May 5, 2011 3:57 PM in response to Skills Design

Glad to help.

27" i7 iMac, 12 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.7), G4 450 MP 1.5 GB RAM w/(10.5.8/10.4.11/9.2.2)

tzara68

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2011 12:26 PM in response to Skills Design

I'm having the same problem, but where do I find the hidden .DS_Store file to delete it?

baltwo

Level 9

62,374 points

Oct 17, 2011 12:31 PM in response to tzara68

No need to find it. This command deletes it:

rm ~/Desktop/.DS_Store

tzara68

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2011 1:35 PM in response to baltwo

Got it. Did it. Worked. Much thanks.

(Don't know if it mattered, but I used the command in your original post quoted above [rm -f ~/Desktop/".DS_Store"].)

baltwo

Level 9

62,374 points

Oct 17, 2011 1:54 PM in response to tzara68

Sorry, but my original post didn't include the -f option. I don't have any idea when that crept in. Maybe someone else added it.

tzara68

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2011 2:08 PM in response to baltwo

Should I not have used that command then? It seems to have worked (tested with several restarts and log outs).

baltwo

Level 9

62,374 points

Oct 17, 2011 11:07 PM in response to tzara68

No. All it does is run the command w/o requesting authority. In this case, it's superfluous.

HenryS

Level 2

318 points

Nov 10, 2013 6:01 AM in response to baltwo

I did not see a post referring to the methods of setting or the Terminal commands available to customize. Is there a link to those commands (maybe a man page)?

HenryS

Level 2

318 points

Nov 10, 2013 6:02 AM in response to baltwo

Your reset instructions worked however. Thanks!!!

Desktop icons rearrange themselves after restart