Did you boot up your Mac and notice that the desktop is missing a few icons or documents? It's quite puzzling because you're certain you didn't delete them, and they were on the screen the last time you used your Mac. So, what do you do to recover the missing desktop icons?
For a start, you can reboot the Mac. If the desktops icons still aren't showing, try booting the Mac into Safe Mode. And if the affected Mac has multiple users, check if you're logged into the correct account. Should the Mac desktop icon(s) remain nowhere to be found after trying these preliminary fixes, proceed to the section below. We explain why that happens and list 4 troubleshooting solutions that could help.
To check if this feature is on, go to Settings iTunes & App Store Offload Unused Apps. If it’s toggled on, toggle it off. Then visit the App Store and search for your missing apps using App Store Updates Tap Your Profile Picture or Icon Purchased Not on This iPhon e to re-download any missing apps. Sep 01, 2020 Here is how: Turn off your Mac. Then turn on your Mac and immediately press and hold the Shift key. Keep holding the Shift key until you see the login window. And then log in. You a re now in Safe Mode. Do you see the icons that were missing from the desktop? Restart your Mac. Just select the. Left-click your mouse anywhere on the screen of your Mac. This will reveal the Go Option in the top menu bar of your. Next, click on the Go option in the top menu-bar of your Mac. While you are still on the Go option, press and hold the Option key on your Mac and then click on the. Hold Cmd and click on every app that is missing its icon. Press Cmd + i (this will open the info window for every one of the apps). Close all of the info windows. Click twice slowly. Unhide All Desktop Icons Step 1:. From the desktop, click Go on the menu bar and select Utilities. Double-click on Terminal to launch the app console. Paste the code below into the Terminal console and hit Enter on your keyboard. Close Terminal and check if the.
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Read More1. Force Quit Finder
Finder is an integral component of the Macintosh operating system. When Finder malfunctions, you can as well expect other core system functionalities and apps to malfunction. We found a couple of Mac users who were able to restore missing desktop icons by force-quitting Finder during research. Yes, the solution could be that simple.
Finder is always running on Mac, so you can't exactly close it. Mac app camera dilter. However, you can instruct the OS to relaunch/refresh Finder, thereby fixing issues causing it to malfunction. Consequently, this might also restore icons that weren't showing on the desktop. Here's how to get it done.
Step 1: Tap the Apple logo on the menu bar.
Step 2: Next, select Force Quit.
That will immediately launch the 'Force Quick Application' window.
Quick Tip: You can swiftly launch the 'Force Quit Application' window within any app by pressing the Command + Option + Escape keys.Step 3: Now, select Finder from the list of apps and tap the Relaunch button.
Step 4: Click Relaunch on the warning prompt.
That will close & reopen Finder and, likewise, refresh all the app icons and files on the desktop. Check if the missing icons have been restored.
2. Modify Finder Preferences
If your Mac desktop icons are still missing after relaunching Finder, proceed to modify Finder to include items from the hard disk and other connected servers on the desktop. This might help to restore icons that aren't showing on the desktop.
Step 1: Tap Finder on the menu bar and select Preferences.
Step 2: In the General section, check the Hard disks and Connected servers boxes.
Step 3: Close the Finder Preferences window and check if the missing icons have been restored to the desktop.
3. Unhide All Desktop Icons
This is another proven solution that we discovered during the course of research. As recommended by Apple, you can fix the Mac desktop icon not showing issue by running a specific command line in the Terminal app. What the command does is to unhide all desktop icons.
Step 1: From the desktop, click Go on the menu bar and select Utilities.
Step 2: Double-click on Terminal to launch the app console.
Step 3: Paste the code below into the Terminal console and hit Enter on your keyboard.
Step 4: Close Terminal and check if the missing icons have reappeared.
4. Check iCloud Drive
On Mac, iCloud Drive provides the option to back up and sync files/icons present on the desktop. If you have 'Desktop and Documents Folders' configured in your Mac's iCloud Drive settings, desktop icons may go missing when deleted on iCloud.com or another device (Mac, iPhone, or iPad) that has access to your iCloud Drive account.
To restore the icons, you'd have to restore them from iCloud Drive. Here's how.
Step 1: Sign in to iCloud on your preferred browser.
Step 2: Select iCloud Drive on the iCloud homepage.
Step 3: At the bottom-right corner of the iCloud Drive dashboard, tap Recently Deleted.
That will open a recycle bin of some sort where you'll find desktop icons and files that might have been accidentally deleted. Proceed to the next step to restore the icon.
Note: If you can't find the missing icon(s) in theRecently Deleted folder, there's a possibility that it has been moved toanother folder within or outside the Desktop folder in iCloud Drive.Step 4: Mac switch windows between same app not working. If you find the missing desktop icon/file in the Recently Deleted folder, select it and click Recover.
If the item was deleted from your iCloud Drive's Desktop folder, it'll be immediately restored to the same location and you should see the icon on your Mac's desktop within seconds.
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Read MoreGet Them Back Home
Finally, if you know the name of the missing icon, we recommend searching for the file in the Bin. You might have deleted it from the desktop by accident. And if you've emptied your Mac's Bin, you don't have to worry. Refer to our guide to recover files from an emptied trash.
Next up:Are FaceTime calls from your iPhone or iPad not coming through on your Mac? Refer to the solutions in the guide linked below to get the issue fixed.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextTop 7 Fixes for FaceTime Calls Not Coming Through on MacAlso See#desktop #macbook
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Last week I received a message from Fons Sonnemans who is porting his awesome Minesweeper 10 game from UWP to Uno Platform. He said he was facing a weird issue with his app on iOS, where the app icon was not showing up after deploying. He also posted a screenshot of the issue on Twitter:
I can't get the Icon of my iOS (#Uno/#Xamarin) app correct. It shows the default icon instead of my AppIcons. #help#dtapic.twitter.com/6XiuAJLmQe
— Fons Sonnemans ?? (@fonssonnemans) May 7, 2020
I originally thought it could be caused by a low iOS version target (which has caused me issues before in other things), but surprisingly it was not that. In the Visual Studio asset editor and
Info.plist
all seemed perfectly fine. Even the .csproj
contained all the <ImageAsset>
references:<ItemGroup> |
<ImageAssetInclude='Media.xcassetsAppIcon.appiconsetiPad-76×76%402x.png'> |
<Visible>false</Visible> |
</ImageAsset> |
… |
</ItemGroup> |
Even then, the Simulator still kept showing the same old default iOS app icon. I asked Fons if he would be willing to provide me access to the repo so that I could run it locally on my Mac, to check if it is not some kind of caching issue – but that wasn’t the case either and the icon was still missing.
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Let’s solve this mystery together!
Suspicious build output
After a while searching the internet I came onto this Stack Overflow answer by mamcx for a similar problem (emphasis mine):
Did you check the build warnings when you compiled the app. You should see a bunch of warnings about missing .png files in the AppIcon image set.
Unlike Xcode, VS requires a reference to each iOS asset .png file in the .csproj file as well as the Assets.xcassets Contents.json file. It’s redundant; but it’s just how VS works.
At first glance, this seemed to lead nowhere, as I previously confirmed the
<ImageAsset>
references were, in fact, present in the .csproj
file. But out of curiosity I made a search for .png
in the Build Output window and found 18 messages like this:The file “[email protected]” for the image set “AppIcons” does not exist.
Why would the file not exist? It is clearly visible in the asset editor and it is in the
.csproj
– something really funky is going on here!Include those files!
If Visual Studio thinks the image files are missing, let’s include them “by force”! In Solution Explorer, I clicked the Show All Files button on the top. There I saw the
Media.xcassets
folder and right-clicked it and selected Include In Project. What I got were now essentially two copies of the same images in the project – once as part as the Asset Catalogs and once in the Media.xcassets
folder:I thought this can’t change anything, but went ahead and tried to run the app again, just to be sure. To my surprise – it worked! The app icon was now there, smiling at me from the iPad’s home screen:
But… why?
It was great it now worked, but why? Luckily, the answer is really close now.
I opened the
.csproj
file to see what is in there. At first glance it seemed Visual Studio just included the same files twice, just without the <Visible>false</Visible>
modifier, so the new copy was actually visible in the Solution Explorer.<ItemGroup> |
<ImageAssetInclude='Media.xcassetsAppIcon.appiconsetipad-76×76%402x.png' /> |
… |
</ItemGroup> |
Looks the same… but what if we look at the two side by side?
<ItemGroup> |
<ImageAssetInclude='Media.xcassetsAppIcon.appiconsetiPad-76×76%402x.png'> |
<Visible>false</Visible> |
</ImageAsset> |
… |
</ItemGroup> |
Aha!
ipad
vs iPad
! Could it be the uppercase? The Contents.json
file referenced the lowercase versions of the image files, but .csproj
originally used the one with uppercase “P” in the filenames.This would normally not be a problem, as Windows is case insensitive, but macOS/iOS is not! It turns out that while copying the project files to the output, Visual Studio uses the casing specified in the
.csproj
file, not the one which the files had originally. I confirmed this by going into the build cache folder on Mac (/User/Library/Caches/Xamarin/mtbs/builds):I deleted the build cache, reverted all changes, and then modified the
.csproj
file to use lowercase versions of the file names in <ImageAsset>
elements. Rebuilt and deployed and app icon was there again – but, as the masked magician would say, now we know the secrets!Mystery solved!
The main takeaway I have from this puzzle is that file casing matters when building cross-platform apps, especially because both Android and iOS are Unix-like and are case sensitive. Also, I will try to remember to read the build output warning messages more closely, as they were telling the truth all along!
Mac App Store Icon Missing
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134134042/897483584.png)