10 Ways to Spring Clean Your Computer

Spring cleaning is such a welcome concept once March has ended. After all, we’ve gotten through another winter and it’s time to celebrate! …by erasing any evidence of the mess or stress that winter has wrought on us. 🙂

The weather has changed for the better, finally. Besides cleaning our homes inside and out, there are some other spring cleaning tasks we can also accomplish in the digital realm!

I’ll be the first to admit my computer and my digital devices are not the most neat, clean, and organized. I go through phases with being on top of my digital stuff! But I’m determined to get there. I tend to “hoard” old photos or blog graphics, or even a funny cartoon I found on Facebook once upon a time.

However, spring cleaning season is here and with many of us spending so much time on digital devices, why not spring clean your computer as well??

10 Ways to Spring Clean Your Computer

1 // Start with the physical cleaning OF your computer! Our digital devices carry so many germs! Make sure you frequently sanitize your computer (and phone). I also like to make sure my screen is free of lint so I like to use a screen spray with a microfiber cloth.

2 // Go through old photos. Many times, our computers are full of old photos that we snapped years ago and never looked at again. Yikes, I know. I am super guilty of this. If you think I’m a bit snap-happy now, I was even more so (and much much less skilled, haha) back in high school! So, I went back through my old photos from high school years. Even though I don’t always have time to go through each picture and determine whether to delete it or not, I have been able to delete some entire folders of photos I don’t need – plus, I have even moved entire folders over to an external hard drive to get them “out of the way” on my computer!

3 // Empty the trash! Some people are really good at remembering to do this! Others empty their computer’s trash once every 6 months. 🙂 If you’ve thrown something away, then just go ahead and empty the trash as well, especially if you’ve been cleaning out files or photos like crazy!

4 // Make good use of an external hard drive! My brother, who is really phenomenal when it comes to technology, helped me to select a great external hard drive a while back. I love this thing. I made sure to purchase one with a ton of storage (since a lot of what I save are photos!). Every now and then, I plug it into my computer and migrate files over to the external hard drive so they are no longer bogging down my computer. I try to think about which files I don’t access all that often. I’ve especially moved things like old papers from high school (like a research paper I wrote on Starbucks for AP Human Geography – I loved it and want to keep it, but I don’t need to access it all the time), or resources from planning our wedding.

And a little bonus: my laptop is getting a bit old so I want to make sure I have all the files I want to keep safely on the external hard drive in case my computer crashes.

5 // Clean up your desktop by deleting, moving, or organizing all the files that are “out in the open.” I had to do this yet again today. I like to save files directly to my desktop a lot of the time, so they’re easier for me to access (and now that’s just plain habit for me), so every so often I definitely have to move files to their appropriate “homes,” like a folder for my blog graphics or a photography session I did. You’ll feel like everything is so much fresher, and it’ll be more aesthetically pleasing!

6 // Create folders. If you don’t already save things into folders, it’s a super good idea. Saves a lot of stress in the end! I have a folder for blog graphics, and some other folders for things like photography education resources.

7 // Start to delete! Just like the normal purging of physical stuff in your house during spring cleaning, begin deleting old files! I often look to delete old documents, or old things like recipes I had saved so I could print them later… Once you get on a roll, just like going through old clothes in your closet, you’ll feel a lot better!

8 // Clean up your dock. On my Mac, I’ve got a whole bar full of my favorite applications. But, once upon a time, I realized I had applications sitting in my dock that I never really used! Double-check what applications are sitting in your dock, and move those that you don’t use regularly enough.

9 // Unsubscribe!! Companies love consumers who just plain forget to unsubscribe! We’re easier to get roped in that way. 😉 If there are emails you’re sick of seeing all the time, or an account you signed up for once and now never use, today’s the day: unsubscribe from those lists! You’ll save yourself future frustration and you may even save yourself some money as well!

10 // Use a fresh new computer desktop background! I created four different inspirational desktop backgrounds just for you! You can access them for free here!

Whew! There you go – how does your computer feel now? Hopefully, it looks even better and your stress levels will be even less now!

How do you like to spring clean your devices?