Introduction
If your desktop icons missing on your Windows 10 computer.
These often do not have a clear reason and that makes it difficult to troubleshoot them.
Don’t worry, you can try the tips below to fix the issue. Quickly and easily.
Before Troubleshoot
The first and the most basic thing you will need to do before you perform any other methods is to check if the option that displays your desktop icons is enabled.
Make sure you have enabled the “Show desktop icon” feature on Windows 10:
Right-click your desktop, click View, and check Show desktop icons.
Check to see if your desktop icons are back.
Method 1. Check your desktop icon settings
- Right-click your desktop and click Personalize,
- Click Themes > Desktop icon settings. ( Snapshot 1 )
- Select the icons you want to show on desktop, then click Ok & Apply. ( Snapshot 2 )
- Check if your missing icons problem is resolved
Method 2. Rebuild Icon cache
You can try these steps to rebuild the icon cache:
- Open command prompt as Administrator Mode,
- Copy-paste the following commands one at a time and press Enter after each command.
- Check if it helps restore your desktop icons.
Method 3. Scan & Fix Corrupted Files
Corrupt files are often the reason why some functions don’t work on your computer. Your files can get corrupted due to various reasons but you can fix them very easy.
Run a Command Prompt and type the following command.
Wait for it to find and fix corrupt files on your computer.
Method 4. Perform a System Restore
If the issue has occurred after installing a software or making changes to your computer configuration, you can resolve it by rolling your machine back to a system restore point.
It will get your configurations back to what they were when the icons displayed perfectly fine on your desktop.
Type recovery in the Windows search box, then press Enter.
At Recovery, click Open System Restore
Select “Choose a different restore point” click “Next”
Check the box beside Show more restore points. You should see a list of ‘restore points’. These are like backups of your computer, as it was at that particular date and time.
Think back to a date when your desktop icons showed up, and select a restore point from that date or slightly earlier (but no later).
Click Next > Finish , Check to see if your desktop icons are now restored on Windows 10.
Method 5. Reset Your Computer
If the steps above didn’t work for you. Resetting your computer is worth a try. It fixed the desktop icon issue for some users.
- Open the Settings app on your PC.
- Click on Update & Security.
- Select Recovery from the left sidebar.
- Click on Get started under the Reset this PC section
Final Words
In some cases, missing and outdated graphics driver may also reason for this problem. so you should make sure updates your all drivers and to avoid the Desktop icon missing problem. There are two ways to update your graphics driver: manually and automatically.
If the above guide helped you fix the recover the desktop icons issue on your PC, please let us know what method worked for you in the comments below.