You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Missing desktop folders

I have a Macbook Pro, Catalina. Today all my desktop folders have disappeared. How can I retrieve them?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 2, 2021 11:48 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 2, 2021 12:26 PM

Jacqui00000 wrote:

I have a Macbook Pro, Catalina. Today all my desktop folders have disappeared. How can I retrieve them?


Verify you are logged into the correct account


If ICloud Drive got turned on look in iCloud

8 replies

Jan 5, 2021 10:50 AM in response to kennifromstenstrup

kennifromstenstrup wrote:

Don’t you need to include the $ in the start?


No— that is the shell prompt for BASH and is not part of the command.


you can see your current shell from Terminal.app copy and paste:

echo $SHELL


In Catalina the default shell has change to ZSH and the prompt there will be: %


Use zsh as the default shell on your Mac

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208050

Jan 5, 2021 9:58 AM in response to Jacqui00000

If your still have the files in finder and you Cannot right click on your desktop the fix is easy. Open terminal and write this in


$ defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true $ killall Finder


then press enter


the problem may be that the desktop isn’t actually there and therefore is not linked to finder.


let me know if this helps🙂

Jan 5, 2021 10:13 AM in response to Jacqui00000

Jacqui00000 wrote:

I have a Macbook Pro, Catalina. Today all my desktop folders have disappeared. How can I retrieve them?



If iCloud Drive is not turned on, then yes you can try the Terminal command, however as it is posted by kennifromstenstrup is not going to work as written. It is the right idea, but as they say—garbage in, garbage out.


kennifromstenstrup wrote:

If your still have the files in finder and you Cannot right click on your desktop the fix is easy. Open terminal and write this in
$ defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true $ killall Finder
then press enter
the problem may be that the desktop isn’t actually there and therefore is not linked to finder.
let me know if this helps🙂



You can however from Terminal.app safely copy and paste:

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop true  && killall Finder


Missing desktop folders

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.