How to Restore Desktop Icons on Windows 11

Desktop icons provide quick access to applications we use frequently, which greatly saves us time in launching programs. However, sometimes you may find that the icons have disappeared from the desktop, which may cause you problems. If you encounter this trouble, you can refer to this guide to recover lost desktop icons in Windows 11.

Method 1: Enable Show Desktop Icons

If all desktop icons are disappearing, they may have been hidden. Before we move on to other advanced solutions to fix this, please make sure to enable this setting from the View menu.

• Right-click an empty area on the desktop.
• Select View and check the checkbox in front of Show desktop icons.

Method 2: Check Desktop Icon Settings

If only some of the system icons are missing from your desktop, such as This PC, Recycle Bin, etc., it may be because you have disabled them in desktop icon settings. In this case, you can use the following steps.

• Right-click the desktop and go to Personalization.

• Go to Themes and click Desktop icon settings.

• Check the icons you want to display on your desktop and click OK to save the changes.

 

Method 3: Rebuild Icon Cache

Another reason why desktop icons on Windows may be missing is that the existing icon cache data is corrupted, in which case you can rebuild the icon cache to fix it.

• In the Start menu, search for Command Prompt and run it as an administrator.
• Type the following command, and press Enter in-between each new line.

• After completing the above steps, restart your computer and check if the missing desktop icons are displayed successfully.

Method 4: Check Group Policy Settings

In addition to the above three methods, you can also make relevant settings for hiding and disabling items by going to the Group Policy Editor.

• Press Windows+R, then in the Run window, type gpedit.msc, and click OK.

• Go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Desktop. Double-click the Hide and disable all items on the desktop policy in the expanded menu bar.

• Select Not Configured or Disabled in the pop-up window and click Apply followed by OK.

 

Method 5: Manually Add Desktop Shortcut Icons

So far, if your desktop icons are still missing, our recommendation is to manually add shortcut icons to your desktop.

• Select Start menu and click on All apps.
• Find the app you want to add to the desktop and drag and drop the app shortcut to the desktop.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you can try the 5 methods in this article to fix Windows 11 desktop icon missing issue. Hope this guide is helpful for you.