Windows 10: Hide or Show Desktop Icons in Windows 10

How to: Hide or Show Desktop Icons in Windows 10

How to Hide or Show All Icons on Your Desktop in Windows 10


Information The desktop is the main screen area that you see after you turn on your PC and sign in to Windows. Like the top of an actual desk, it serves as a surface for your work. When you open programs or folders, they appear on the desktop. You can also put items on the desktop, such as files, folders, and shortcuts, and arrange them however you want.

This tutorial will show you how to hide or show all the icons on your desktop as needed in Windows 10.



Note When you hide desktop icons, the icons are still on your desktop, but just do not display.

Your desktop icons will still always show in your opened %UserProfile%\Desktop and shell:desktop folders in File Explorer.


EXAMPLE: Hide or Show Desktop Icons









Here's How:

1. Do step 2 (show) or step 3 (hide) below for what you would like to do.


2. To Show All Your Desktop Icons
NOTE: This is the default setting.
A) Right click or press and hold on your desktop (Shift+F10), click/tap on View, and click/tap on Show desktop icons to check it afterwards. (see screenshot below)





3. To Hide All Your Desktop Icons
A) Right click or press and hold on your desktop (Shift+F10), click/tap on View, and click/tap on Show desktop icons to uncheck it afterwards. (see screenshot below)








That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Turn On or Off Auto Arrange Desktop Icons in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Align Desktop Icons to Grid in Windows 10
• How to Change the Size of Desktop Icons in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Common Desktop Icons in Windows 10
• How to Change Desktop Icon Horizontal and Vertical Spacing in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Dropbox Desktop Icon in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove OneDrive Desktop Icon in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Homegroup Desktop Icon in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Drop Shadows for Icon Labels on Desktop in Windows

:)

 

Can't hide Shortcut from my desktop

I'm using windows 10 pro 10240, I can hide my shortcut with right click on my desktop -> view -> uncheck show desktop icon but the problem is everytime I restart or turn on my pc there is no check mark in "show desktop icon" but all my desktop icon shows
up like "show desktop icon" option was check marked. please help, thank you

 

Change desktop icon font size and color in Windows 10 Home

Hi,

For you to change the desktop icon font size and color, check the article below and follow the steps provided.

Change desktop background and colors

Show, hide, or resize desktop icons

Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

I'm glad it could help Dawn, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

 

Tried the BAT file to display desktop ions on desktop, didn't work. I don't like them on the taskbar.

Thanks for any assistance

 

Hello Jean,

It appears something has changed not allowing the .bat to show them again, so I removed that option for now. *Sad

 

Thanks, any other "fixes" for that problem?

 

You can change desktop icon size by holding Ctrl and scrolling with the mouse scroll wheel.

 

For now, just using the desktop context menu. *Sad

 

Installed Win 10 this week. Many questions! But for this thread: I right clicked on desktop to hide icons, worked fine, BUT now right click on desktop is ignored, so I can't go back. Must be rare, nobody else on net mentions it...

 

Hello Ol Bab, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

It sounds like you have some other issue at hand. If you haven't already, you might see if you may be able to after restarting the PC.

 

I've restarted many times over the week, usually to do with connection problems. No joy. Thank you.
There are so many things that are so damned "intuitive" that they just don't need/get a help entry (where? Where is help?). Instead I am sent to the whole darn web, 236,00 hits, and good luck figuring out which to look at.*Mad Rant off.

 

Ol Bab,

In that case, use the Find and Find next feature in Registry Editor to search for all instances of the HideIcons DWORD. There should be two. When found, modify each one's data value to be 0 (zero), then restart the PC to apply. This should show your desktop icons again.

 

Did you try right clicking directly on the icon?

 

That wouldn't be the issue in this case for Ol Bab. *Smile