{"id":16853,"date":"2011-05-03T12:27:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T10:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=16853"},"modified":"2025-07-02T02:01:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T09:01:20","slug":"how-to-hide-desktop-icons-in-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-hide-desktop-icons-in-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"How to: Hide desktop icons in Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Are there times when you just wish all your desktop icons would disappear? Of course, using Windows would be tricky without them but once you have more than a dozen or so desktop icons your screen gets cluttered.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully there is a way to temporarily<strong> hide desktop icons<\/strong> to give you a cleaner screen. What\u2019s more, it\u2019s very easy to do!<\/p>\n<h3>Hide icons in Windows XP<\/h3>\n<p>In XP, you need to right-click on any space on your desktop. Select <strong>Arrange Icons By,<\/strong> then uncheck the option that says <strong>Show Desktop Icons<\/strong>. To display the icons again, just repeat the same procedure.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16856\" title=\"hidewinxp\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2011\/05\/hidewinxp.png\" alt=\"Hide XP icons\" width=\"473\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2011\/05\/hidewinxp.png 472w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2011\/05\/hidewinxp-300x190.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 473px) 100vw, 473px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Hide icons in Windows 7<\/h3>\n<p>The procedure for hiding icons is very similar in Windows 7. Right-click on the desktop and choose <strong>View<\/strong>, then go to <strong>Show desktop icons<\/strong> to uncheck it. Again, you repeat the same process to turn the icons back on.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16857\" title=\"hidewin7\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2011\/05\/hidewin7.png\" alt=\"Hide Windows 7 icons\" width=\"582\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2011\/05\/hidewin7.png 582w, https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2011\/05\/hidewin7-300x204.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 582px) 100vw, 582px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Related programs<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/desksweeper.en.softonic.com\/\"><strong>DeskSweeper<\/strong><\/a>: Allows you to show or hide icons even more easily, placing an icon in the Windows system tray that lets you toggle desktop icons on and off.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/deskduster.en.softonic.com\/\"><strong>DeskDuster<\/strong><\/a>: This program actually lets you schedule icons to hide themselves after a given period of PC inactivity. This way, you can ensure that your computer looks clean, even when you\u2019re not there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are there times when you just wish all your desktop icons would disappear? Of course, using Windows would be tricky without them but once you have more than a dozen or so desktop icons your screen gets cluttered. Thankfully there is a way to temporarily hide desktop icons to give you a cleaner screen. What\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-hide-desktop-icons-in-windows\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How to: Hide desktop icons in Windows&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[2441],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-16853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334296,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16853\/revisions\/334296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16853"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=16853"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=16853"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=16853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}