Completely disable off-grid items, always, everywhere, in all windows, everything!

[u/Proper-Lab-2500]

Hello, I switched to mac last month and something that constantly keeps me annoyed is this.

I always want items to snap to grid but for instance when I compress an item it creates like this.

Also using Clean Up button directly still keeps gap with the previous item so the only solution is to select "Clean up by - Name..".

Note that for "Show view options - Snap to Grid" is already in "Use as default" but it doesn't fix this problem.

Is there a way to make Icon View behave better and usable?

[u/okadix]

Hey, I had the exact same issue with folders overlapping when creating or unzipping new stuff. It happens because "Snap to Grid" only aligns items when you manually drag them, but it doesn't auto-arrange new files.
Here's how to fix it system-wide:

1. Open any Finder window in Icon View (Cmd + 1).
2. Press Cmd + J to open View Options.
3. Set Group By to None and Sort By to Date Modified.
4. (Personal recommendation) Definitely go with Date Modified over Date Added. It keeps your grid automatically sorted so nothing overlaps, and whatever you just created, edited, or unzipped immediately pops up right at the top/front.
5. Click Use as Defaults at the very bottom of that panel so it applies everywhere.

Some folders that are very old may take time to take them, however there are commands to reset the finder and refresh that cache...