Is there a way to manage my Grub menu options from with the GUI/desktop?

With each kernel update, a new entry is placed in Grub to provide a way to boot that specific kernel version.

I have about 5 at the moment and, to be honest, once I have confirmed I can boot into the new kernel version, I never go back to a previous version.

I'd like to manage the items in this list from the desktop rather than edit the file, is there a way to do this using the GUI from within Ubuntu itself?

Yes, remove the packages.

Load up synaptic and search for linux-image. Click the first column to sort by packages that are actually installed and then click the green boxes to alter the state.

You're looking for packages that look like: linux-image-2.6.31-ubuntu10. Don't remove linux-image as that will stop updates coming in.

Just mark the ones you don't want anymore and then click apply. I would suggest (if you're happy with it) removing all but the current kernel and the one before it (just in case).

When you're done, click apply and grub gets cleaned up.

You can install a program called StartUp-Manager.

The package is called startupmanager. You can search for this in the Ubuntu Software Centre or Synaptic or run:sudo apt-get install startupmanager in a terminal.

It allows you to select the what grub entry is default, the number of seconds grub waits until it automatically boots and other options, such as resolution.

It is a good idea to uninstall old kernels from synaptic though.

Daniel Richter has developed a GUI configuration tool to allow users to change the Grub 2 settings without using the command line. The application allows the user to add, remove, freeze, rename and reorder boot menu items. It will also allow changes to the Grub 2 configuration settings such as background image and menu timeout.

you can use it and install it follow this GUIDE

if you want deep in GRUB 2 you can read this GUIDE too

so thx to DANIEL