disappearting desktop icons

[allan53]

Running 11.5.1 - Do not use icoud for document and desktop backup so that option is unchecked.

Last night my desktop icons, except for hard drives disappeared from my desktop. They were all missing when I looked from my user.desktop sidebar.

I ended up just moving the icons from my latest Time Machine backup.

What could have caused this - is there something I should do or just hope it doesn't happen agaain?

Allan

 

[george_i]

Mac desktop icons are missing - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[allan53]

THanks for the reply George but I that does not pertain. I already have the items checked in finder preferences and iCloud documents and desktop unchecked.

 

[george_i]

I think the only solution is -if the issue persists- to reinstall macOS.

 

[usagora]

Running 11.5.1 - Do not use icoud for document and desktop backup so that option is unchecked.

Last night my desktop icons, except for hard drives disappeared from my desktop. They were all missing when I looked from my user.desktop sidebar.

I ended up just moving the icons from my latest Time Machine backup.

What could have caused this - is there something I should do or just hope it doesn't happen agaain?

Allan

Did you try restarting your Mac before you restored from the Time Machine backup? If not, and this happens again, try restarting to see if that fixes it.

Also, were these "icons" files? e.g. documents, spreadsheets, images, etc.? Or were they shortcuts/aliases or something else?

You specified they were gone when you looked from the sidebar (assuming you meant on a Finder window), but I'm assuming they were also gone when you looked at the actual desktop as well, right?

 

[allan53]

I did not restart my iMac.
The icons were actual files and folders.
They were also gone from the desktop.