Ubuntu’s Desktop Icons NG (DING) extension has a little-known way to bring order to a chaotic desktop: stacks.
Stacks groups multiple files of the same type in a collapsible icon, e.g. images in one stack, PDFs in another and so on. Folders don’t get grouped, and if there is only one of a type of file on the desktop, it is not stacked.
Expanding a stack by clicking on it reveals all files in the stack (other file icons bump out of the way). Multiple stacks can be expanded or collapsed at the same time, and stacks can be left open (there’s auto-collapse). Stacks persist between reboots.
But files don’t move anywhere; stacked groups are a visual tidy-up, not a literal one.
I had no idea this nifty feature even existed until I covered the DING GTK4 port back in July. The changelog then mentioned stacking had been made accessible.
“Stacks?” I thought, “Surely not desktop stacks like macOS has…”.
Yup, very similar it turns out:
This isn’t a new feature. You can enable file stacking from the desktop on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and above:
- Right click on the Ubuntu desktop
- Choose Arrange by…
- Choose Keep stacked by type
To switch desktop stacks off, repeat the steps above. All your files are return to individual detritus littered about the desktop.
Grouping is by based on file type only, so there’s no date options (as macOS equivalent has). All stacks use the same icon – a folder – which is a shame. But a small arrow emblem distinguishes stack folders from actual folders, and the name reflects the contents.
Can you exclude file types from being stacked, but not others? There is a gsettings value for unstackedtypes which I thought would help. It expects file strings, so “image/png” not “.png” – however, they still stack, but expanded by default.
I think it would be useful if exclusions did did work, e.g., leave .png screenshots on show on the desktop, but group other image types. Perhaps a niche use case.
It is good idea to keep a lean desktop space. If you can’t, and you don’t fancy moving files into folders (or using a script to do it, as has been popular in the past), this feature is a handy way to reduce visual clutter.
DING is preinstalled on Ubuntu, so there’s nothing to install. If you use a different Linux distribution that uses GNOME Shell, you can install DING from the GNOME Extensions website.