A tidier desk in ten minutes
A laptop desk gathers cables quickly: the charger, a monitor, a hub, a lamp, a phone lead. Left loose, they tangle, slide off the back of the desk every time you unplug the laptop, and wear out where they bend. The clips and sleeves here put each one where you want it and keep it there. They suit a home office, a student's room or a shared desk where you want the charger lead to be waiting in the same place every morning.
What you will find here
- Adhesive clips that stick to the desk, wall or the back of a monitor and hold one or several cables in a row, many of them clear so they hardly show.
- Magnetic clips where the cable sits in a small magnetic holder and lifts away when you need it, then drops back into place.
- Desk-edge clips that push onto the edge of the desk with no drilling, to stop the charger lead falling behind.
- Reusable ties that undo and fasten again, for coiling spare length or holding a bundle together.
- Self-closing braided sleeves that wrap round a bundle of cables and close themselves, in a wide choice of widths and lengths.
- Protector sleeves that fit over the end of a lead where it meets the plug.
For trays that hold a power strip and the spare cable out of sight beneath the desk, see under-desk cable trays, and for somewhere to put the rest, desk organisers.
How to choose
For a sleeve, measure round the bundle of cables it will hold and choose a width a little larger, so it closes without straining. For adhesive clips, clean and dry the surface first: they hold best on smooth, flat surfaces such as metal, glass and laminate. Use magnetic clips for the cables you unplug every day, such as the laptop's charger, and fixed clips or a sleeve for the ones that never move.
Tidying also looks after the cables. Most laptop chargers that fail do so at the lead, where it meets the plug or the brick. Avoid wrapping a lead tightly round its charger and avoid sharp bends at the ends; a loose coil held with a tie or clip is kinder. A small coloured tag or tie on each cable also tells you at a glance which is the 240W charging cable and which the monitor lead.
Questions people ask about cable tidies
Will a sleeve make my cables run hot?
Braided sleeves are an open weave that lets air through. Leave a charger's brick outside the sleeve rather than wrapped inside it.
Do protector sleeves stop a lead breaking?
They reduce the sharp bend at the plug end, which is where leads most often fail. They do not fix a lead that is already damaged: replace that.
Delivery is included in every price and tracked to your door.
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