Desktop Icons

Summary :

A lot of icons are placed on the desktop of a computer in general; they are generated automatically by the system/the software you’ve installed or created manually by users for convenience. You may customize the icons to suit your habits. This post on MiniTool mainly focuses on how to remove icons from desktop when they are useless.

Crowdsourced royalty-free Icons for commercial use, free icons for website design, and free desktop icons available at Iconscout. Download free Icons in PNG, SVG, EPS, AI, and others. Nov 05, 2020 Click an icon you want to change. This will select the icon. For example, you might click This PC or Recycle Bin.; You can also check the box next to a desktop icon's name at the top of the window to make it appear on your desktop, or uncheck the box to remove it from the desktop.

Windows 10 Desktop Icons Disappeared

Desktop icon, also known as desktop shortcut, creates an easy way to access certain location/program/settings. You can open the page you want to visit directly by just clicking on the corresponding icon on desktop. The desktop icons on computer include 3 types generally:

• System related icons (such as This PC, Recycle Bin, and Control Panel)
• App icons (such as browsers icon, tools icon, and game icon)
• File/folder/location icons

The first two types are generated automatically while the last type is created manually by users for the sake of convenience. What if you find some desktop icons are not useful anymore? Obviously, you should remove icons from desktop manually. But do you know how to remove icons from desktop? In fact, there are several ways available for you to delete icon (or delete shortcut).

How to Remove Desktop Icons on Windows 10 Computer

How to remove shortcuts from desktop when you find it is not useful anymore? There are 3 basic ways you can use to remove/delete an icon (or shortcut) on the desktop.

Remove Icon from Desktop Directly

This is the most direct way to remove or delete a desktop icon on Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, and other systems.

Step 1: look through all the icons placed on your desktop.

Step 2: right click on the icon that you want to remove from desktop.

Step 3: choose Delete from the pop-up context menu.

Step 4: click on the Yes button when a window pops up to ask you Are you sure you want to move this shortcut to the Recycle Bin.

You can also select the icon on your desktop and press Delete button on the keyboard to see the pop-up prompt window.

As the prompt message shows, the desktop icon deleted by this way will be sent to the Recycle Bin kept there for a certain period of time.

How to delete the desktop icon shortcut permanently? There are 3 ways to use.

1^st way: delete icon from Recycle Bin.

1. Open Recycle Bin.
2. Select the icon and press Delete on the keyboard.
3. Click on the Yes button in the pop-up window to confirm.

Also, you can right click on it & choose Delete.

2^nd way: empty the Recycle Bin.

1. Right click on the Recycle Bin.
2. Select Empty Recycle Bin.
3. Click on the Yes button in the prompt window to confirm.

Recycle Bin recovery seems quite difficult for us if the Recycle Bin is emptied or the files are further deleted from it; but, it is not the case.

3^rd way: Shift Delete the icon.

1. Select the icon you want to delete on the desktop.
2. Press Shift + Delete on keyboard.
3. Click Yes to confirm the action.

Learn the steps to recover permanently deleted files in Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista after 'shift-delete' or 'empty recycle bin'.

In addition, you can make use of the Show desktop icons feature to hide/unhide all the icons on the desktop instead of deleting them.

1. Right click on any blank area on the desktop.
2. Navigate to the View option.
3. Click Show desktop icons from its submenu.
4. All the icons on desktop will disappear immediately.

To bring back the icons, you only need to repeat this process.

Remove Desktop Icons in Desktop Folder

1. Open Windows Explorer by pressing Win+E or other ways.
2. Copy & paste %userprofile%desktop into the address bar at the top.
3. Click on the right arrow button or press Enter.
4. Browse the items in the window and select the icon you don’t want.
5. Right click on it and choose Delete from the menu (you can also press Delete or Shift + Delete on keyboard to delete the icons directly).
6. Click Yes to confirm the deletion action.

Remove System Icons from Desktop

You may find there’s no Delete option after right clicking on some system related icons. In this situation, how can you delete the system icons?

1. Show desktop Windows 10.
2. Select Personalize.
3. Choose Themes in the left pane.
4. Scroll down in the right pane to go to Related Settings section.
5. Click on the Desktop icon settings link.
6. Uncheck the icons that you don’t to show on desktop.
7. Click on the OK button to confirm changes.

That’s all about how to remove icons from desktop on Windows 10. (The steps to remove icons from desktop in other Windows systems are similar.)

Having too many desktop icons and shortcuts can make your desktop look cluttered. It can also make it difficult for you to find the right program that you want to launch. On top of that, when your desktop is cluttered, it can slow down your computer’s startup time and affect your computer performance.

Desktop icon organizer helps you to keep your icons and shortcuts organized and keep them easily accessible.

Desktop Icons

Stardock Fences

This software offers various features, including support for modern monitors, shared areas, wallpaper blurs, hide or show icons, and desktop portal creation. It allows you to maintain a distraction-free desktop, and makes all of the shortcuts accessible in their respective categories.

Desktop Icons Spaced Out

Krento

Krento is a modern desktop organizer, which helps you to find program shortcuts and favorite websites easily. It provides a widget engine, application dock, and application launcher in one simple but powerful application. Not only it can make your desktop more organized, it can also make it look more attractive as well.

Iconoid

Iconoid is a Windows desktop icon manager application that allows you to save and restore icon positions, hide icons automatically, color the background of your desktop icons, and choose your own icon text colors. The software is compatible with all types of Windows, from Windows 2000 to Windows 10.

Real Desktop

Real Desktop is a desktop organizer software that allows you to create a real 3D desktop environment on your desktop. It features 3x more space for your desktop, 3D room creation for any topics, low CPU and memory usage, and easy-to-use interface.

How To Change Desktop Icons

Desktop Icon Toy

Desktop Icon Toy is a desktop enhancement software that allows you to create custom patterns for your icon placement on your desktop. There are many patterns that you can create, such as clock, star, heart, cross, spiral, circle, triangle, and many other shapes.

ICU – Icon Configuration Utility

ICU is a desktop organizer software that allows you to configure your icon positions, so that you can restore them to your configured position when they get rearranged. You can set the hotkey for restoring the icons, which can restore your icons quickly.

Desktop Modify

Desktop Modify allows you to arrange your desktop icons into unique shapes, which can make your desktop more attractive and cute. The features provided by this software include beautiful and unique GUI, save icon positions, and 77 available shapes.

Wincmder Shellex

This is a Windows shell extension that allows you to display your desktop icons in the right-click context menu of Windows Explorer. The features provided by this software include show content when right-clicking a folder, hide hidden files from the context menu, and lightweight installation.

iCollections

iCollections allows you to organize your icons, create photo frames, and view pictures right from your desktop. This software is available for Mac, with key features include create collections, watch slideshow, change collection style, and sort items within the collections.

DesktopShelves

This software helps you to remove clutter on your desktop and organize your desktop icons on shelves. It is equipped with drag and drop system, Finder integration, different shelf designs, text snippets, drop text selection, and hotkey access to shelves.

Download Desktop Icons Windows 10

Other Desktop Icon Organizer Software for Different Platforms

Desktop icon organizer can be found in almost any platforms. No matter what platform that you are using, you can always find the right desktop icon organizer software for you.

ObjectDock

ObjectDock is a Windows application that allows you to organize your desktop to look like the docking system used in Mac OS X. You can put your desktop shortcuts in various folders on your dock to keep them organized. You can customize it with various skins.

Berokyo

Berokyo is a desktop organizer and quick launcher app available for Mac OS X, which helps to keep your Mac desktop organized to make it easier for you to access the applications and files from your desktop. It offers various main features, such as item organizer, item tagging, and multiple item launcher.

Apps Organizer

Apps Organizer is a simple tool to organize your Android apps with labels. With this tool, you can create widgets or label shortcuts on your Android home screen to keep all of the icon shortcuts organized. This app is integrated with the Folder Organizer apps to enhance its functionalities.

J-Pilot

J-Pilot is a desktop organizer app for PalmOS devices. It helps PalmOS users to organize their desktop icons and keep their shortcuts easily accessible. It has third-party application support, import and export features, and plugin support.

RocketDock – Best Desktop Icon Organizer of 2016

RocketDock is a desktop application launcher with a clean interface that allows you to organize your desktop and keep it accessible. It offers various features, such as minimizing windows to dock, real-time Windows preview, running application indicators, and simple drag-and-drop interface.

What is Desktop Icon Organizer?

Desktop icon organizer is a type of application that allows you to make your desktop more organized. Sometimes, it can be difficult for you to find some application shortcuts on your desktop because there are too many of them. If you don’t organize your desktop, you might end up wasting a lot of time just to find the application shortcut that you want to launch. This software helps to organize your desktop shortcuts into folders for easier access.

How to Install Desktop Icon Organizer?

To install a desktop icon organizer software, you need to download an installation file from the official website of the software and run the installation file on your device. Be sure to download only the compatible software for your device, since not all desktop icon organizer software is available for all platforms.

Organizing your desktop icons and shortcuts is important to keep your desktop clean and comfortable to look at. Having too many icons on your desktop can be confusing, and moreover, it doesn’t look good for the eyes. It also slows down your computer performance, since it needs to load all the icons on the startup process, which can take quite some time. By using the desktop icon organizer, you can keep your desktop simple, clean, and easily accessible. Not only that, you will also be able to arrange the desktop icons into shapes to make your desktop look more beautiful and attractive.