00:00In this video, I will show you how to remove icons from your Windows 11 desktop without
00:05deleting them.
00:07So I'll be showing you how to hide or remove desktop icons whilst keeping the files, folders
00:11and shortcuts safely on your computer.
00:14Before we get started, if this video helps you out today, make sure to leave a like,
00:18comment below and subscribe for more Windows 11 tutorials and easy tech guides.
00:24Now what you can do is remove individual icons or you can just go ahead and hide all your
00:29icons.
00:30It's completely up to you, but I'll be showing you how to do both methods.
00:33So if there's just one desktop icon you want to hide, what you want to do is locate it
00:37on your desktop.
00:38So I'm going to use Spotify as an example.
00:40What you want to do is right click onto the desktop icon.
00:43And from this menu that comes up, you want to come and find properties, give that a click.
00:48Once the properties window has opened, come up to the tabs at the top and click onto general.
00:53And then from the general section, if you come down to the bottom underneath attributes,
00:57you want to take the hidden box here.
01:00Once you've done that, make sure to click apply and okay.
01:03And as you can see, what that's going to do is hide it from your desktop.
01:07Now, if you want to remove this and you want to add it back to your desktop, all you need
01:11to do is come to your search box at the bottom.
01:13In here, you want to type file explorer and then open up your file explorer underneath
01:18best match.
01:19Now, once you've done this, if you come up to the top, click onto view up here.
01:23And on this menu that comes up, you want to hover over the show option.
01:27And in the sub menu, you're going to see hidden items.
01:30So all you need to do is simply give that a click.
01:32Once you've done that, it's going to show all your hidden items on your desktop.
01:35So you can see if I come back to my desktop, we've got the Spotify icon, which has now shown
01:40down here, but you can see it's still shown as hidden because the icon is transparent.
01:45If you want to unhide this, just simply right click again, go back into properties general
01:49and just untick the box for hidden.
01:51Then make sure to click apply and okay, which going to add it back to your desktop.
01:56So that's how you can do it for individual icons.
01:58Now, if you just want to go ahead and just completely hide all your desktop icons, all you
02:02need to do is right click onto a blank space of your desktop.
02:06And then what you want to do is hover over the view option on this menu that comes up.
02:10And in the sub menu, you're going to see an option, which says show desktop icons.
02:14You can see this currently a tick next to this, which means that this is enabled.
02:18But if we give it a click, it's going to automatically hide our desktop icons.
02:22And again, to unhide these, just simply right click onto your desktop, come back to view
02:27and then select the option for show desktop icons, which is going to add them back to your
02:32desktop.
02:33So that's how to remove desktop icons without deleting in windows 11.
02:37Make sure to like comment and subscribe for more windows 11 and simple tech tutorials.
02:43And with that being said, I will see you in the next video.
