When those desktop icons disappear, it can really impact your productivity.

When in doubt, restart, especially if you haven’t powered down your system in a while.

EnableWindows 10 desktop visibility.

You might have configured your desktop to hide all desktop icons.

Right-click anywhere in the Windows desktop area and selectViewfrom the menu that appears.

You’ll see a list of items to customized desktop icons.

At the bottom, you’ll seeShow desktop icons.

If it isn’t enabled already, that’s the reason icons have disappeared from your Windows 10 desktop.

DisableWindows 10 Tablet mode.

Use thesystem file checker to repair system files.

Rebuild the icon cache with a command prompt.

The Windows 10 OS maintains which icons to display on your desktop via cache files.

At times this cache can fall out of sync with the actual icons you created on your desktop.

you’re free to force Windows to rebuild these cache files by deleting them.

Reset your PC to factory settingsif all else fails.

If nothing else works, consider resetting your PC and starting from scratch.

Be sure you’vebacked up your Windows 10 PCfirst.

At times this cache can fall out of sync with the actual icons you created on your desktop.

you’re free to force Windows to rebuild these cache files by deleting them.

opt for Start menu and typecmd.

Right-click theCommand Promptapp and selectRun as administrator.

This will launch theCommand Prompt window in Administrator mode.

You will need to selectYesto confirm that Command Prompt can make changes on your unit.

You’ll need to punch in five lines of commands pressingEnterafter each.

After typing the command to kill explorer.exe, you will notice the entire background will go black.

Once you key in thestart explorer.execommand, the background and icons will return back to normal.

Causes of Missing Desktop Icons

There are several reasons that your desktop icons could go missing.