A lot of icons are placed on the desktop of a computer in general; they are generated automatically by the system/the software you’ve installed or created manually by users for convenience. You may customize the icons to suit your habits. This post on MiniTool mainly focuses on how to remove icons from desktop when they are useless.
Quick Navigation :
- How to Remove Desktop Icons on Windows 10 Computer
Desktop icon, also known as desktop shortcut, creates an easy way to access certain location/program/settings. You can open the page you want to visit directly by just clicking on the corresponding icon on desktop. The desktop icons on computer include 3 types generally:
- System related icons [such as This PC, Recycle Bin, and Control Panel]
- App icons [such as browsers icon, tools icon, and game icon]
- File/folder/location icons
The first two types are generated automatically while the last type is created manually by users for the sake of convenience. What if you find some desktop icons are not useful anymore? Obviously, you should remove icons from desktop manually. But do you know how to remove icons from desktop? In fact, there are several ways available for you to delete icon [or delete shortcut].
Tip: What to do if you have deleted a file by mistake while removing icons? Please get a reliable recovery tool and use it to recover the file without any delay!
How to remove shortcuts from desktop when you find it is not useful anymore? There are 3 basic ways you can use to remove/delete an icon [or shortcut] on the desktop.
Remove Icon from Desktop Directly
This is the most direct way to remove or delete a desktop icon on Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, and other systems.
Step 1: look through all the icons placed on your desktop.
Step 2: right click on the icon that you want to remove from desktop.
Step 3: choose Delete from the pop-up context menu.
Step 4: click on the Yes button when a window pops up to ask you Are you sure you want to move this shortcut to the Recycle Bin.
You can also select the icon on your desktop and press Delete button on the keyboard to see the pop-up prompt window.
As the prompt message shows, the desktop icon deleted by this way will be sent to the Recycle Bin kept there for a certain period of time.
How to delete the desktop icon shortcut permanently? There are 3 ways to use.
1st way: delete icon from Recycle Bin.
- Open Recycle Bin.
- Select the icon and press Delete on the keyboard.
- Click on the Yes button in the pop-up window to confirm.
Also, you can right click on it & choose Delete.
2nd way: empty the Recycle Bin.
- Right click on the Recycle Bin.
- Select Empty Recycle Bin.
- Click on the Yes button in the prompt window to confirm.
3rd way: Shift Delete the icon.
- Select the icon you want to delete on the desktop.
- Press Shift + Delete on keyboard.
- Click Yes to confirm the action.
In addition, you can make use of the Show desktop icons feature to hide/unhide all the icons on the desktop instead of deleting them.
- Right click on any blank area on the desktop.
- Navigate to the View option.
- Click Show desktop icons from its submenu.
- All the icons on desktop will disappear immediately.
To bring back the icons, you only need to repeat this process.
Remove Desktop Icons in Desktop Folder
- Open Windows Explorer by pressing Win+E or other ways.
- Copy & paste %userprofile%\desktop into the address bar at the top.
- Click on the right arrow button or press Enter.
- Browse the items in the window and select the icon you don’t want.
- Right click on it and choose Delete from the menu [you can also press Delete or Shift + Delete on keyboard to delete the icons directly].
- Click Yes to confirm the deletion action.
[SOLVED] Windows Explorer Needs To Be Restarted: Problem Fixed.
Remove System Icons from Desktop
You may find there’s no Delete option after right clicking on some system related icons. In this situation, how can you delete the system icons?
- Show desktop Windows 10.
- Select Personalize.
- Choose Themes in the left pane.
- Scroll down in the right pane to go to Related Settings section.
- Click on the Desktop icon settings link.
- Uncheck the icons that you don’t to show on desktop.
- Click on the OK button to confirm changes.
That’s all about how to remove icons from desktop on Windows 10. [The steps to remove icons from desktop in other Windows systems are similar.]
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Sarah has been working as an editor at MiniTool since she graduated from university. Sarah aims at helping users with their computer problems such as disk errors and data loss. She feels a sense of accomplishment to see that users get their issues fixed relying on her articles. Besides, she likes to make friends and listen to music after work.
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by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
I am trying to create a batch file that will delete a specific shortcut on the desktop off of each users desktop. I know i can write a srcipt to delete it on startup, but that is not the best option for me. I need something i can double click on and it will search each users profile on the pc and delete the shortcut. Can this be done? Note: Writing a batch to delete it from “All Users” is not what im looking for.
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by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
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by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
XP
@echo off
Set scut=”C:\documents and settings”del /s /q /f %scut%\name of shortcut.lnk
Vista
@echo off
Set scut=C:\usersdel /s /q /f %scut%\name of shortcut.lnk
Edit: to add “””
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by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
To obtain a list of Shortcuts from Documents and Settings run this. It will create a file on C:\> named SC.txt and it can be opened in NotePad.
@echo off
Set scut=”C:\documents and settings”dir /a /s %scut%\*.lnk >c:\sc.txt
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by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
Sorry forgot to mention. Just tried it, worked beautifully. Just one more question, if i want to delete multiple shortcuts i just add “del /s /q /f %scut%\name of shortcut.lnk” on the next line correct? Or do i need to type set scut…
And thanks for the quick responses.
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by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
@echo off
Set scut=”C:\documents and settings”del /s /q /f %scut%\100.lnk
goto A
:A
Set scut=”C:\documents and settings”
del /s /q /f %scut%\echo.txt.lnk
goto B
:B
Set scut=”C:\documents and settings”
del /s /q /f %scut%\Red Alert 3 Control Center.lnk
goto C
:C
Set scut=”C:\documents and settings”
del /s /q /f %scut%\history.lnk
goto end
:END
The above sample will delete the first .lnk and then move on to the next command with the goto syntax and then delete the next .lnk and so on……….
You use the goto to go to the next set of instructions that you want to perform.
Depending on the amount of shortcuts that you want to remove will depend on the goto’s that you will need to use. Also use the goto end to finish up the batch file. You could use wildcards but I find that it is dangerous and you could end up deleting all of the shortcuts.
Keep us informed as to your progress if you require further assistance. 😉 😀
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by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
You will need two files and if you do it this way you will only have to modify delSC.txt for future use. Make sure that the text in delSC.txt has the double quotes surrounding it.
Copy between the ——– and paste this into NotePad and save it as SCdel.cmd
Save both files to C:\> and you can create a shortcut to the files to run or modify them.
——————
set target=”C:\documents and settings”
FOR /F ” tokens=* ” %%i in [delSC.txt] do del /s /q /f %target%\%%i
——————
Contents of delSC.txt
“t1.txt” “t2.txt”
and so on………
eXample of the output:
C:\>set target=”C:\documents and settings”
C:\>FOR /F ” tokens=* ” %i in [delSC.txt] do del /s /q /f “C:\documents and settings”\%i
C:\>del /s /q /f “C:\documents and settings”\”t2.txt” Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\Administrator\Desktop\t2.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\All Users\Desktop\t2.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\black\Desktop\t2.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\blank\Desktop\t2.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\dave\Desktop\t2.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\jock\Desktop\t2.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\Rob\Cookies\t2.txt
Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\Rob\Desktop\t2.txt
C:\>del /s /q /f “C:\documents and settings”\”t1.txt” Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\Administrator\Desktop\T1.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\All Users\Desktop\T1.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\black\Desktop\T1.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\blank\Desktop\T1.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\dave\Desktop\T1.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\jock\Desktop\T1.txt Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\Rob\Cookies\T1.txt
Deleted file – C:\documents and settings\Rob\Desktop\T1.txt
C:\>pause
Press any key to continue . . .
Edit: modifed ws.txt to delSc.txt
and to add that it won’t remove hidden links.
by · about 12 years, 6 months ago
Set scut=”C:\documents and settings”
del /s /q /f %scut%\”shortcut 1.lnk”
del /s /q /f %scut%\”shortcut 2.lnk”
del /s /q /f %scut%\”shortcut 3.lnk”
etc…
And it worked fine.
by · about 12 years, 6 months ago