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Quick-hide desktop icons?

I like a clean desktop and for several years have used an app called TinkerTool to hide/unhide all the icons. It is a simple app which doesn't mess with the OS but just drops out to toggle a command line option. Quite by accident, I recently discovered that, when no apps are open, the standard key combo of Cmd+Q also hid all the icons, as if it was quitting Finder. Clicking Finder in the Dock restored the icons. Since this was quicker than launching a third-party app and allowed me to remove TinkerTool from my Dock, I thought this was a nifty little feature I would use a lot.


But it ain't. Mostly it doesn't work. Sometimes it does, but I can't predict when. Does anyone know whether this is an actual High Sierra feature? A bug? Does anyone have knowledge about the conditions under which it works? Is it dangerous?


Thanks.


David

iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS Sierra (10.12.4), null

Posted on Mar 5, 2018 9:09 AM

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Posted on Mar 5, 2018 9:23 AM

This appears to be the equivalent to running ‘defaults write com.apple.Finder QuitMenuItem 1’ and ‘killall Finder’ in terminal to activate a quit option, then Command+Q initiates the quit, hiding your items. This is harmless and if you find it helpful, I see no reason not to do it.

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Mar 5, 2018 9:23 AM in response to Dhabercom

This appears to be the equivalent to running ‘defaults write com.apple.Finder QuitMenuItem 1’ and ‘killall Finder’ in terminal to activate a quit option, then Command+Q initiates the quit, hiding your items. This is harmless and if you find it helpful, I see no reason not to do it.

Quick-hide desktop icons?

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