How often do you clean up your computer files and desktop?

Yes, I like to straighten my desktop. I usually just create folders and stuff things in there, but then I'm faced with a mess like this one, lol.

I rarely, if ever, create a new folder to save something in. Most things I download go right on my desktop where I can find them immediately. And there they sit until they bug me too much by blocking the background image to the point where I cant remember what the heck it is. Then I create a folder and stick them in there. Now I've got to go through tons of folders and weed out the things I don't want.

Lol, dusting... yeah, I should probably do that soon too, lol!
I have a lot of music files since I play guitar and have vowed to make a cd of my own someday (maybe) and I keep all my files on my pc so I can work on them. I also compose music online, so that contributes to the music files stored here. Plus, I like to make slide shows and add certain songs to them, so I've downloaded plenty of music in my time, and yes, it's all on my computer. Takes up a lot of space.
I have them all backed up, but I like them here for easy access. I just need to weed through them from time to time. I've waited too long this time though. Sheesh.

Yeah, the photos is my main problem right now because my digital camera for some reason makes the images unbelievably huge and when I open them with infranview to resize them the top corner of the photo takes up my whole monitor screen (which is a 17 inch screen by the way). I haven't re-sized most of the images, so now they're all taking up at least 1 MB of space each... and I have TONS of them. I should resize and save them in folders as soon as I upload them to the computer, but I don't and now I'm paying for that.

I rarely clean my cookies, which is a no-no, I should definitely do that more often. I keep getting adware and malware, which I have a program set up to scan for and block automatically, but it doesn't seem to be working all that well. I should probably block some cookies, but I don't. My computer runs very slow too, that's kind of why I started cleaning it up at this point. I have like 8MB of space left. Can you believe that? I'm surprised the thing even has enough juice to boot up.:D

You're like the third person to mention CCleaner, I think I'm going to try that. I may have used it years ago b/c it sound familiar, but I haven't used it for a long time. I also haven't defragged ever since I've been using this computer (over a year now) and should probably do that after I organize and delete files.

Thanks for the info.

CCleaner is a great program and really helps your pc run better.

~~AT PEACE WITHIN~~

**STAND STRONG IN YOUR BELIEFS**

Thanks, I'm going to try it. I need a major clean up I think.
I've been running a bit faster since I deleted a bunch of files, compressed music and image files, did a disk clean-up and defragged. I could stand to go faster though.

I should really do a system disk clean too. Haven't done that in the year that I've been using this computer. Mine is really overloaded with files too. I've got to finish organizing them and deleting unwanted ones so I can clean my disk, defrag and get this thing running faster.

I know how slow a computer can be because of excessive files. That's the thing that prompted me to start cleaning up my files. I didn't realize just how many files I had on here until I started going through them! I'm going on my third day of clean up, and I'm not even a quarter of the way through all my files and folders. This is going to take me a LONG time. But my computer will hopefully be running much faster once I'm done.

See, I wish I could be like this. I start out fine, with a great set up of folders and keep everything very organized... but that only lasts so long, and I always resort back to my old ways, saving stuff right to my desktop, using it... maybe even deleting it and not deleting the old shortcut. Yow, I can't even begin to tell you how many programs are on this computer from a year ago that haven't been touched at all. I've got to buckle down and start being more organized. It really will help me out in the long run. Especially if I plan on making a living from home using my computer!

Good luck with that.Not only will your system run faster, but you will also be saving a lot of time not looking for stuff.
God bless!:)

What do you use to clean your hard drive?