Desktop icons use to disappear rather often without any reason. You work on your machine and in a moment you discover that all icons are gone and all you can see is your wallpaper on bare desktop. This used to happen on Windows 7 and unfortunately this still happens on Windows 10 as well. Many users have been plagued by this recurring problem for months since switching to Windows 10. By the way, very often desktop icons disappear when a second display is used because of a rare glitch. So, let’s find out how to fix the problem and restore desktop icons on your screen.
Attention! We consider a situation when all icons disappeared but not a part of them. If you see that a part of your desktop icons are missing try turning off the maintenance task.
How to add icons to desktop in Windows 10
First of all let us see how to add icons to your desktop in Windows 10.
- Right-click on the empty area of your desktop.
- Select Personalize:
- Head to “Themes” in the left pane.
- Click on the “Desktop icon settings” link:
- Select desktop icons that you would like to add to your desktop.
- Click “OK” to save changes:
If this method does not work and you don’t see icons on your desktop continue reading about how to fix the disappeared icons issue on Windows 10.
Desktop icons disappeared! How to restore them?
Here are various solutions that may help you restore missing desktop icons in different situations. If the solution doesn’t work for you, try the next one.
1. Disable and Enable “Show Desktop Icons”
Try to do the following:
- Right-click on the desktop.
- Select “View”.
- Even if the option “Show Desktop icons” is already checked they may be hidden. Uncheck “Show Desktop icons”.
- Repeat the same and Check the flag again:
In many cases it helps to fix the issue on Windows after you just toggle them off and then on again.
2. File creation method to restore missing desktop icons
- Right-click on the empty desktop.
- Create a random file:
In many cases icons appear after you create a file on the desktop. You can delete the file when you solve the problem. Weird but helps rather often.
3. Switch to Tablet Mode to restore disappeared desktop icons
Folks say this method helps if desktop icons disappear after they upgraded to windows 10.
- Go to “Settings” > “System” > “Tablet Mode”.
- Set both buttons to “ON” position:
- Then slide them both back to “OFF” setting.
- Return to your homescreen and check the result.
4. “Sort by” method to get icons back
This worked for many people who were using multiple displays and faced the issue of disappeared desktop icons.
- Right-click on the desktop.
- Select “sort by” then “name”:
5. Rebuild icon cache if your desktop icons still do not appear
- Run command prompt as administrator.
- Copy and paste the following commands hitting “Enter” after each one:
taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
attrib –h IconCache.db
del IconCache.db
start explorer.exe
It will hopefully restore your desktop icons back to the primary screen.
Adam Swift Adam is a real tech maniac. He likes to spend time testing phones, tablets, laptops, as well as any other technical devices, and write practical manuals on their functions. He often sleeps all day, but always works at night.
Adam bought his first computer in 1999, being an absolute beginner who never held a computer mouse in his hands. He began to study Windows, constantly experimented and often crashed the operating system. But six months later, he was able to reinstall Windows 98 from a scratch on his own, fix almost any software problem on a PC, he also did hardware upgrades and realized that computers, operating systems and programs are now his biggest passion.
In addition, Adam has always been a big lover of phones. With the advent of smartphones with Android OS, he began to pick at them much more than in computers.
Now Adam loves to study privacy issues in instant messengers, blocking unwanted calls and other nuances related to privacy and security on the network. You can follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tunecomp
View Comments
#5 Worked for me. Thank you!
GENIUS! Thank you so much ... Rebuilding the icon cache worked like a charm.
Thank you so much! Number 1 worked for me!
Didn't work. The ONLY way I can restore them is open Windows explorer and navigate to user/desktop, copy all entries and past them on to the desktop. But then they disappear on the next reboot. :-(
#1 worked!
Thanks, followed the steps and the second one worked. That's a relief. Appreciate your help.
Thanks, #2 create a file! Who would have thought!
Thank you team the second solution worked and now i've learned something new tnx
Thanks, #5 worked for me, also I have had the taskbar crash like when you taskkill explorer and i never knew that you can just run that again.
had many icons then i lost them all dont know what happen