Shortcutz

The desktop is the space where you find most shortcuts, and you probably store important and work folders. Needless to say that it can quickly become a cluttered space, leading you to create more folders. On the bright side of things, there are various third-party alternatives like Shortcutz which aim to solve such inconveniences.

First of all, you might want to know that the application is portable, so you can see what it can do for you from the moment download is done. As such, it’s also possible to store it directly on a thumb drive in case you want or need to use it on other computers. It doesn’t make any changes to system registry entries in the process.

You might end up scratching your head for a while at launch, because only an empty window shows up on launch. Luckily, a tooltip shows up which indicates how you can start. On the other hand, accessing the context menu unveils a several options, which also come in handy as methods to add items.

A simple method of filling up the empty space is to simply drag elements over the window. Note, however, that you can only drag files and shortcuts, and not folders, which is rather disappointing. Renaming is not an option here, but you can freely adjust icons in the new layout. You can also include website URLs.

Last but not least, there are a few options to be found in the dedicated menu. Arrangement can be set to manual or automatic, while icon display set to large, small, or list, but with no details. It minimizes to the tray area when not used, but there’s no hotkey command to quickly bring it back up.

Bottom line is that applications like Shortcutz are sure to come in handy when dealing with a cluttered desktop. Although it feels a little rough around the edges, it comes as a practical virtual desktop in which you can store a variety of files, including website links.