The ideal desktop and dropbox configuration.
I just got a new computer and I think I’ve found my ideal desktop & Dropbox configuration.
- Symlink your Documents folder into your Desktop
- Symlink your Documents folder into your Dropbox folder.
- Set your browser(s) downloads to go into Documents
- Put nothing else on your Desktop. Ever.
Note that every icon on your desktop in OS X takes as many resources as an open window. You want to keep it clean for the aesthetics, but you also get a performance boost.
In this configuration, you don’t need to look in a bunch of places to find things. Everything is in one directory. I like that a lot.
Everything is available online, because everything in Documents is backed up by dropbox. I can sign into anyone’s computer and get anything on my computer. If this computer crashes and burns, I will be as simple as replicating this setup to get everything back.
You could also go the extra mile and sync your configuration files too. Plenty of people should do this, but a good number of people reading this don’t know what a ~/.bash_profile is. They also don’t know what a symlink is.
$ ln -s ~/Documents/ ~/Desktop/DOCS
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