Desktop File in OS 9, How Big Can It Be?

Not sure if this addresses your issue, but look at this Apple document. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=10182

 Cheers, Tom

Hi, Carl. I doubt that having a large folder on the desktop slows things down any more than having a small one there. What would slow things way down for certain is turning a folder containing hundreds of photos with custom icons upside down and emptying them all onto the desktop.

In other words, what slows things down is the need to "draw" all the items on the desktop, especially when all or many of them have different icons from each other. Photographic image files, for which many applications create icons that are tiny thumbnails of the images themselves, create the most extreme demands on the system's screen drawing capabilities. Put 'em all in a folder, though, and only when the folder is opened does the OS have to draw all those icons. As long as the folder stays closed, its standard folder icon is quick and easy to draw, even if it's out on the desktop.

A less obvious danger that goes with the habit of keeping lots and lots of things out on the desktop is that, with all of them right in front of you all the time, it's much easier to do things to them by mistake — like accidentally select and trash them, or attach them to an email message to the wrong recipient, or burn them to a CD they shouldn't be on. You can also bury them under each other and panic when you think you've lost something that's actually still right there.

Filing things away before the clutter gets too great is a good practice, and under some circumstances, it may even speed your computer up a little.

Hi, Carl -

The desktop file has very little to do with the Desktop, in spite of the similarity of names. Placing an item on the Desktop does not expand the desktop file.

• The Desktop -

The Desktop is actually an invisible, always open folder; every volume (in OS 9 and earlier) has its own Desktop folder.

The Desktop is considered a shared area, but it's better to imagine it as a stack of separate invisible and transparent desktop folders, all open at the same time.

Every mounted volume (disk or partition) has its own layer in that stack.

By default, when something is saved to the Desktop, or Option-copied there from a volume, it is placed on the Desktop layer belonging to the current boot volume.

If your folders are in a layer belonging to another volume, then when you drag the item from the Desktop into one of those folders it will be copied into it, not just moved - same as if you had dragged an item directly from one volume to another - with the original left behind.

• The desktop file -

There are two invisible database files, Desktop DB and Desktop DF, that Finder maintains; these are used by Finder to keep track of where files are, what program any given file type should be linked to, where those programs are, and what icon to apply to each file - in the case of files with custom icons, it often keeps a copy of those icons in those desktop files, too.

Ages ago there was just one such invisible desktop file; in more modern OS's, there are now two. But, by tradition, we refer to both the files, collectively, as the desktop file, or simply, the desktop.

Sometimes the desktop file gets out of kilter, out of sync with reality, and Finder gets confused, not being able to locate what it needs quickly enough. Often this status results in generic icons being displayed for programs and their files, and Finder can no longer link an app's documents with the app. In bad cases, it can affect the basic operation of the OS itself.

The basic maintenance to do then is to rebuild the desktop - have Finder confirm, relearn, and refresh the information in the databases. There is a built-in command mechanism to instruct Finder to do that - at startup, hold down the Command and Option keys, keep them held down until a splash screen appears asking if we really do want the desktop rebuilt - clicking "okay" is the normal response, unless we've changed our mind (or have more than one hard drive, and just want to rebuild the desktop on one of them). It takes a few minutes to complete the rebuild.

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Although moving an item to the Desktop does not affect the size of desktop file, it can slow down Finder redraws of the Desktop. Whenever Finder needs to redraw any portion of the Desktop, it must research each item that is on the Desktop - this causes Finder to go to the desktop file to find out if that item needs a custom icon, and, if so, which to use.

So, additional items on the Desktop can slow down a Finder redraw simply by being there; and more so if the desktop file itself is overly bloated (Finder has to look through more stuff to find what it needs).

Rebuilding the desktop file can be part of the solution.

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Other things which can slow down Finder -

• If a picture is not displayed on the Desktop, open the Appearance control panel, go to the Desktop tab - if the Remove Picture button is active, click it. Doing this cures a situation where there was once a picture displayed on the Desktop, but the picture itself was removed at one point without changing the setting in Appearance control panel. Appearance keeps looking for that non-existent picture on each redraw of the Desktop, which takes time.

• Check in the Recent Servers folder in the Apple menu, and the Servers folder in the System Folder - trash any aliases you find there. Likewise, get rid of any unneeded aliases or items in the Startup Items folder in System Folder.

• Having an alias to a hard drive in the Apple menu, though certainly convenient, slows down startup while the OS builds a hierarchical menu for it.

• If you're networked and use File Sharing, there can be a delay caused by the Mac reconnecting to shared items (drives and volumes) which it has been told to do so at startup. If the machine is not networked, disable File Sharing (control panel and related extensions).

• http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=121946

Carl B,
As the other two replies indicate, the Desktop is not bloated and cannot become bloated by the size of the items in that folder. As far as the items stored on the Desktop are concerned, the Desktop is just another folder that is always open. The number of things that are actually seen all across the desktop is what can slow the graphic redraw of the screen image. One folder, no matter how many millions of photos might be in it, will not make any noticable difference on the screen redraw.

You have mentioned the main reason for not covering the desktop with many files and folders. It makes a mess that can keep you confused.

By the way, when or if you decide to rebuild the invisible "desktop db" file, you should hold the shift key at startup until you see the "Welcome To Mac OS, Extensions Off" screen and then hold the Option + Apple keys until you see the message asking you to confirm what you want to do. This is because sometimes third party extensions will interfere with the desktop file rebuild. Alternately, you can create a Stickie note called "dektop db" and save it as stationary to the hard drive and confirm the message to replace the desktop db file. Then trash the Stickie note and restart. You will have a new desktop db file.