[yakito]

At the moment of writing this I have no clue what my wallpaper is. I can't remember when was the last time I actually saw my desktop or interacted with it. I am not sure if this ball will also bounce on top of opened windows, but the whole thing made me think about the need for the desktop at all or how it could be made more useful.

[Bluestein]

Heavy command line user, eh?

[marionauta]

Not the OP but I use all the programs full screen / maximized. I change windows with alt+tab or maybe I reach down to the dock to select the app icon quicker. I only see my wallpaper when changing workspaces, because the animation shows it a split second. I do use the command line but it's not the only way to not show the wallpaper. This is true whether I'm on Linux or macOS.

[KineticLensman]

Also me but on Windows 10. I only see the wall paper just after I've booted the machine and within a few seconds at least one window is maximised (typically a tabbed browser), started from the task bar. alt+tab after that

[Bluestein]

Serious, I cannot be the only one with a default black, color-only Desktop background since Win95? :)

[greenpresident]

Not OP but for everyone I know the desktop is mostly either empty or a messy “temp” folder.

[caseyohara]

I treat my desktop as a temp dir and manually empty it every few days.

A desktop hygiene tip I read years ago (but can't remember where) is to increase the size of your desktop icons almost to the point of being ridiculously large, like 96x96. This way your desktop will "fill up" faster, forcing you to clear it more regularly.

[Bluestein]

(*Me fails at the "empty it every few days" stage ...)

[mFixman]

I use it as a Downloads folder.

I always know where my recently downloaded files are, and I have visual feedback of when I should delete them.

I also use it as a temporary launchpad for sorting uploads.

[Bluestein]

Totally. There's absolutely no in-between.-