10 Best Desktop Organizers (Review) In 2020

The Safco Onyx Mesh Desktop Organizer stays out of your way while keeping all the miscellaneous stuff that had been cluttering up your desktop out of the way with it. It’s fashioned from durable powder-coated steel but sleek and stylish enough that it will do its job without taking over the desktop from either a visual or practical standpoint. There desk trays large enough to accommodate notebooks and even your laptop when you’re not using it. Plus 4 vertical storage slots with open-ended tops to hold various things that won’t fit or shouldn’t be stored on the shelves; like binders, envelopes and such.

The mesh construction of this desktop file organizer allows it to blend into the surroundings without taking over. You can label each of the vertical slots in order to enhance your organization and you don’t have to be shy about what you store in those slots, because the steel shelf underpinning them can hold anything you’ve got. Each slot is 2 inches wide which is big enough to hold small packages. And together the 4 vertical slots and 2 deep shelves provide plenty of acreage for all your clutter. All in all a compact, sturdy, attractive, affordable way to keep your desk tidy and our choice for best desk organizer. If you are tired of sitting in your office, check out our guide to the best standing desks.

Amazon wades into the desktop organizer market with a surprisingly effective, compact product that will take all that stuff currently scattered about your desktop and give it a home. There are 4 large semicircular vertical baskets for pens and pencils, scissors, your stapler, rulers, an extra pair of eyeglasses or anything else that’s tall and in the way. Across the top in the center is a horizontal shelf with 3 compartments for handling paper clips, rubber bands, erasers and the like and below that a central sliding drawer where you can put all the other stuff that isn’t big enough to warrant its own slot or shelf.

About the only thing that’s missing here are some good sized vertical slots capable of handling looseleaf binders and the like. But you can’t fit everything into such a compact design. And compact it is. At only 9+ inches wide by 4.5 inches deep AmazonBasics Mesh Desk Organizer will fit neatly onto just about any sized desk and not interfere with normal operations. And while it’s not going to win any “office beautiful” awards it’s reasonably attractive and should fit in well with just about any desk decor. Given its solid construction, very reasonable price point and 1-year warranty it’s a no-brainer for our Best Value. You may also like to check our guide to the best standing desk mats.

Some of us need serious help from the organizer gods, while others just need to get their monitor up off the desk to create a bit more space. If you’re among the latter then the Halter Mesh Computer clear desk organizer is for you. As far as steel mesh organizers go this is maybe the most attractive and discreet on the market. It has a pleasing horizontal orientation that doesn’t take over the desktop while at the same time serving multiple practical purposes, including getting your monitor up in the air a bit where you can see it.

It sports an incredibly simple, sturdy design with arched steel tubes at the front and back. It has a durable powder coat finish that won’t scratch every time you touch it with a pen or stapler and there’s a surprising amount of storage space involved for such a sleek device. The action on the built-in drawer is smooth and dependable. The vertical pockets on the side will handle all your miscellaneous clutter. And because this is a two-pack you can put the second one off to the side to hold all those things you need but don’t need access to every single day. Be sure to also check out our list of the best ergonomic office chairs for more great items like this.

Metal desk accessories are great, but if you have a more traditional wooden desk they may not always be an aesthetic match. Enter the Songmics Bamboo 2-Tier Riser. It’s fashioned from lightweight but durable bamboo with that traditional wood’s attractive finish. It can be assembled by anyone with a screwdriver in just a few minutes. And if the color is not a perfect match for your desk you can easily apply a stain that will bring it into aesthetic line with the rest of your office. The ergonomics are also well considered. Which means it will accommodate all of your desktop clutter with surprising aplomb.

It lifts your monitor 6 inches off the desk to provide a more natural viewing angle. There’s a desk tray under the top shelf for important papers or even your laptop. The cubbies along each side feature slide-out dividers that enable you to expand or contract them to hold whatever you need them to hold. And your keyboard disappears discreetly under the riser to really open up desktop real estate. This organizer will hold up to 80 pounds without flinching and weighs only 9.5 pounds itself. It’s simple to assemble, simple to use and will breathe new life into your moribund desktop. For more organization ideas, check out our guide to the best filing cabinets.

Sometimes you need an organizer for your desktop. And sometimes you need an organizer for your countertop. The great thing about the Ancona Life 3-Tier Desktop Organizer is that it will handle both tasks with equal facility. It’s a stationary organizer that will also allow you to take all those pens, papers, paper clips, little-used external hard drives, post-its, and other items and put them safely and securely out of sight. On the countertop, you can use it to hold spices, condiments, utensils, cookbooks and more. We can easily see it fitting in nicely in just about any style of the kitchen from the country, to modern to Victorian.

The Ancona Life organizer is simplicity itself with a clean box-like design that’s deceptively spacious and 3 drawers that enable you not only to collect all your previously loose office materials into one easy-to-reach place but to put them effectively out of sight as well. As with the Songmics organizer above it can also be easily stained by any competent do-it-yourselfer to dovetail with the color scheme of your office. There’s plenty of space up top for loose-leaf binders, diary planners, books, your laptop and more.

The Fitueyes organizer leans on traditional desk organization ideas. With a dark wood finish and clean, modern lines it goes great with any type of contemporary desk and provides you copious space to store all your desktop clutter in a logical and convenient way. There’s nothing groundbreaking here. It’s a basic organizer with nice clean lines that are built to last and has a carrying capacity of 33 pounds. It lets you take all that miscellaneous clutter that you’ve been shuffling around on the desktop and bring it together in one place.

The organizer has non-slip rubberized feet to keep it in place and if you need to you can flip it on its back and make a more upright organizer for important papers and notebooks. At just under 14 inches wide by 10.5 inches deep it’s not going to take over your desktop as some organizers will. Instead, it tucks neatly out of the way off to the side adding a professional air to your work environment and keeping things handy for when you need them. It’s well constructed from quality materials, assembles in just a few minutes and will provide you years of trouble-free use. Don’t forget to also check our guide to the best laptop stands.

Sometimes you want an organizer to keep your desk tidy that’s essentially a small piece of furniture. And sometimes you just want something to accommodate little pieces of misc clutter without having to permanently surrender a chuck of desktop real estate to a bulky organizer. The Vlando Vpack Desk Organizer is more of a system rather than a single object. There are 5 different sized and shaped components that operate independently of one another and can be arranged however you see fit.

There are innumerable configuration options here. Cluster them all in one part of the desktop or put 2 over there and 3 over there. If you only need a couple right now just store the others away. However, you want to deploy them it’s up to you. While we’re not head over heels in love with the PU leather cover it’s not a major distraction and certainly not a deal breaker. But it’s not going to dovetail with some desks and so in that sense, it limits the applicability of what is otherwise an outstanding little desktop organization system. If your organizational needs aren’t great and your budget is a bit limited this system is definitely a viable option. Make sure you also check our selection of the best label makers.

The Jelly Comb Riser is more than just a slab of wood or metal to put under your monitor. It’s a picture-perfect desktop accompaniment with a sleek minimalist profile and lots of useful features built in. With a weight capacity of 55 pounds, it will more than hold its own under your monitor. If you need it to expand horizontally to accommodate an oversized gaming monitor it will do that too. Just flip the end sections out and snap them into place and the riser goes from 16.5 inches wide to 20.5 inches wide.

Some desktop organizers leave a lot to be desired in the style department but not the Jelly Comb Riser. It has a solid, modern profile that’s both pleasing to the eye and simple enough that it will easily slip into the visual background. You’re likely to forget it’s even there most of the time. If you’re a person who needs to keep track of what’s going on with their smartphone and tablet while you’re working the 2 discreet drawers can be extended and angled downward to hold your handsets and keep them up front so that you never miss a text or email from an important client. This is the kind of product we’d expect to cost a pretty penny. But it’s actually very affordable. And that should make it an easy choice for style conscious folks who need a little more organization than they currently have. If you need equipment for your office, check our guide to the best scanners.

These days not everyone has need of a desktop organizer that will accommodate lots of papers, notepads, and loose-leaf binders. What they need instead is just something that allows them to put all their USB drives, XHDs, keys, loose change, and other miscellaneous items together in one spot for easy retrieval. The Red Co. Metal Desktop Organizer will allow them to do just that. The Red Co. Organizer is not just for the desktop, however. And that’s a big part of its appeal. Put it on a table in the foyer and use it to hold your car keys, coins for the tollbooth, sunglasses and more. Or put it on the countertop in the kitchen and use it to hold spoons, spatulas and other items you use frequently.

The Red Co. Desktop Organizer features an open design that allows it to lend a hand without calling attention to itself and is fashioned from high-quality stainless steel and wood. The steel features a restrained and tasteful powder coated matt finish and the upper shelf is mahogany-toned wood. At 10 x 4 x 5 inches it’s not going to chew up a valuable desktop or countertop space and at just 1.3 pounds you can move it around easily to wherever it’s most needed. Our guide to the best portable printers offers more great products for your office.

The final item on our list of best desktop organizers is this slightly offbeat number from Gather. From a strictly aesthetic standpoint, the Gather Modular is not the best desk organizer out there. But from a practical standpoint, it delivers the goods. As long as the clutter you need to organize is minimal and limited to various types of hardware like paperclips, pens, markers, USB drives and the like. This is not a file organizer that’s going to help you with your loose-leaf binders and legal documents. But it does a good job of gathering up desk supplies and giving them a home.

On the upside, we can also point to the attractive maple wood used in the base, the compact design and the fact that it’s one of the few organizers out there that has a component that’s specifically designed to accommodate your smartphone in an upright position. In addition, the white thermoplastic that’s used to create the various individual components is tough and well executed and bound to last until the next ice age. It’s also easy to move around as a whole and the different components tend to stay firmly seated within the grooves so you don’t have an organizational apocalypse on your hand if you accidentally bump into it.