Do you need a way to hide all the icons on your desktop before you make that screencast, or for another reason? It’s easier than you think, and this little tech tip I am going to share will make your presentation much cleaner with fewer onscreen distractions.
Simply go to the applications folder in your dock, then find the Utilities subfolder. Click on it and then find the Terminal application, and click on it. Then, simply paste this text into the terminal window:
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false
– and hit enter. After that, paste this text into the terminal window:
killall Finder
– and hit enter. All the icons on your desktop should disappear and you can present your screencast without a lot of clutter. In order to get the icons back, simply type:
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true
– and hit enter. After that, you guessed it, paste this text into the Terminal window:
killall Finder
….and things are back to where they were. I think very few Mac users are inclined to get into the terminal because of its relatively unfriendly interface but if you read up on it little bit you will find that it’s a very powerful tool for accomplishing a lot of different things on OS X.
In fact, if you are feeling adventurous check out this article on how to create a hotkey toggle to do this for you, by making use of Automator.
