I'm pretty good at keeping my desktop workspace free of clutter by using a daily desktop file purge at the end of each day ("trash it or save it into a to-do folder"). But occasionally I'll be working on a House Tour or similar project where tens of icons litter by desktop, making it hard to navigate the clutter. Here's a free application which wipes away tour desktop like a Magic Sponge across a dirty sink...
Shade is a free OS X application offering the option to mask your desktop clutter at the touch of a mouse click. You can either use the standard preinstalled grass wallpaper or designate any desktop wallpaper of your choosing to cover over your mess. Shade is Retina Display compatible, but unfortunately doesn't yet support multi-monitor setups.
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so it only hides? not deletes? and does it have that big shade logo in the middle?
a windows version of this without the logo would be very nice..
@ResidentGeek: the logo is not visible while in use. I don't think most people want an app that deletes all their icons...it's more of a short visual respite rather than a "delete all" solution.
@residentgeek: If you're using Windows 7, just right-click on the desktop and select "Hide Desktop Icons".
No app needed in windows.
There is an app called Camouflage that has done this for years. Works great and you can set custom wallpapers. Plus it work on multiple monitors.
@djgeo No app needed in windows? my work computer is still vista.. is there a way to hide the icons, files, etc on the computer? and what about on xp.. which is another one in the print room at work (its a mess, but they wont let me update it)
@residentgeek SCS68 already posted how to do that in win7 which also works for vista and xp