Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop. It can hide icons when they are not in use as well as make it easy to place icons into moveable groups called "fences". Fences popularity has been driven by its capability to help users easily organize cluttered PC desktops by automatically grouping and sorting icons, shortcuts and files into managed fenced areas controlled by the user"s custom settings. Fences eliminates desktop clutter with adjustable fenced areas that organizes desktop objects into logical groups for quick access.
Key Features
- Use fences on modern, high DPI monitors.
- Create shaded areas to organize your desktop.
- Roll up fences to the Title-bar for cleaner desktops.
- Double click the desktop to hide or show icons.
- Define rules to organize your desktop icons.
- Swipe between multiple pages of fences.
- Create a desktop portal from any folder.
- Navigate the folder structure from within the fence.
- Windows 10/11 compatibility.
Fences 5.84 changelog:
- Added functionality to resolve excessive User Account Control prompts.
- Added the "Create debug package" option to the Troubleshooting area
- Added a new advanced (C++) logging option to the Troubleshooting area
- Updated Win11ContextMenu package"s internal package icons (new installs only)
- Prevent rare situations where all icons could end up on the desktop upon app startup
- Prevent situations where a layout could not save when using old layout modes
- Added resilience for desktop folders relocated to removable drives
- Fixes ‘number of times opened’ sorting for items in a Fence.
- Fixed "icons bunch up on bottom" issue
- Fixed "layout stuck" issue
- New feature: Ability to "Swap Screen Contents" in the Layouts tab. If you"ve arrived at a multi-monitor configuration and your icons/groups are not on the correct monitor, you can swap them until it"s right. Find this under "Adjust displays" link.
- Major Update: All users are now being migrated to the new multi-mon compatible auto layout adjustment system introduced in Fences v5.50. Unlike the previous options, this new system will keep track of your group positions on a per-monitor-configuration basis so that when you plug and unplug monitors/dock and undock, your groups and icons will be right where you left them. Additional messaging has been placed throughout the Layout tab area to emphasize and notify when users arrive to this tab. (Only users who currently have or have had in the past more than 1 monitor will be notified.)
- Major Improvement: Folder Portals now resize lightning fast, so you can see their contents rearrange in real-time as you resize your group. It"s pretty neat! And now super responsive.
- Compatibility update: Peek performance and reliability has been further improved with the latest Windows Insider.
- Compatibility update: It was possible for some Folder Portals to delay showing if one of the folder portals was actively syncing (i.e. Dropbox). This has been worked around.
- Compatibility update: Roll-up Fence groups will remain open and expanded (vs retract) when you right-click on a file and navigate using Windows 11 Insider"s new file context menu.
- Compatibility update: On the latest Windows 11 Insider builds, desktop icon spacing will now respond more favorably especially when changing DPIs and especially when desktop icon size is set to "large".
- Fix: When using Peek, you can now properly hold Control to multi-select files.
- Fix: Folder Portals now correctly scroll with the mouse wheel one icon at a time, instead of Explorer"s default of 1.5x at a time.
- Fix: Folder Portals that have icons smaller than the desktop + are a single row in height would be taller than they should be on startup.
- Fix: Potential crash when changing Windows system themes.
- Fix: Using the pipe symbol "|" in title could cause issue with rules system.
- Fix: Rule picker will now better stay up to date if you create a new Fence group and then navigate back to the dialog.
- Fix: Mouse wheel + control now once again correctly resizes desktop icons .
- Fix: Peek could dismiss if you do a desktop lasso during Peek and release the mouse outside of the Peek area.
- QOL Improvement: Double-clicking on the "folder" or "up" icon of a folder portal title bar no longer triggers roll-up
Stardock Fences 5.84 is fully compatible with Windows 10/11 and is free to use via a 30-day trial with an option to purchase for $9.99.
Disclaimer: Neowin"s relationship to Stardock.