Desktop icons disappeared, but not from the "Desktop" folder

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Desktop icons disappeared, but not from the "Desktop" folder

I have one of the most ridiculous bugs in Macbooks (on top of many other similar inconvenient features which I will not mention here...): My desktop icons disappeared all of a sudden. I don't know why, I didn't even realize it because I was working. The folder "Desktop" is there in Finder, and icons are in that folder too; but my desktop (i.e., the screen you see when you turn on the laptop), doesn't have any icons. Plus, I had set a custom background and it was gone too. My desktop 'screen' is not even connected to my desktop 'folder' because when I take a screenshot, it is not shown on the screen. It is shown in the folder. FYI, I searched for solutions but nobody experienced the same issue; in their cases either the icons were hidden or they needed to uncheck the iCloud backup for Desktop&Finder.

Does anyone have any solutions for this? If it helps: It's 2021 MacBook Pro 14", and software is up to date.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Jul 19, 2022 7:47 PM

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Answer 1

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ekrem947 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 21, 2022 3:33 PM in response to ekrem947

We fixed the problem with help of Apple Customer Support and I'd like to add this to here in case anyone needs it in the future: After trying a couple of other options, the thing that finally worked was the following:

-Go to Library folder

-Go to Preferences folder

-Find "com.apple.finder.plist" and move it to the "Desktop" folder in the sidebar

-Restart the computer

-Icons re-appear and desktop works fine

Apparently for an unknown reason this file was corrupt and the communication between screen and the Desktop folder had an issue. I am guessing doing this re-configure the desktop settings and solved the problem.

I hope it helps anyone who may have the same issue.

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Answer 2

Jul 20, 2022 7:22 AM in response to ekrem947

ekrem947 wrote:

I have one of the most ridiculous bugs in Macbooks (on top of many other similar inconvenient features which I will not mention here...): My desktop icons disappeared all of a sudden. I don't know why, I didn't even realize it because I was working. The folder "Desktop" is there in Finder, and icons are in that folder too; but my desktop (i.e., the screen you see when you turn on the laptop), doesn't have any icons. Plus, I had set a custom background and it was gone too. My desktop 'screen' is not even connected to my desktop 'folder' because when I take a screenshot, it is not shown on the screen. It is shown in the folder. FYI, I searched for solutions but nobody experienced the same issue; in their cases either the icons were hidden or they needed to uncheck the iCloud backup for Desktop&Finder.

Does anyone have any solutions for this? If it helps: It's 2021 MacBook Pro 14", and software is up to date.

Thanks.

try a SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

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Answer 3

ekrem947 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 20, 2022 2:19 PM in response to leroydouglas

Yes I tried that - no help...

I created a new user account as administrator, and that new account did not have this issue. Then it can't be a macOS problem, it is specific to my account. At first, I suspected that I created new desktops (with F3) and then deleted the one that originally had the icons, and the new desktops did not have the ability for desktop modifications. But I tried to re-generate the issue on this new user account, and realized that the icons are actually copied to all new desktops you create. I don't know what is going on....

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Desktop icons disappeared, but not from the "Desktop" folder

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