How to Unhide Desktop Icons on macOS

One day I realized all of the desktop icons on my 2019 MacBook Pro were missing, but still visible in Finder. I thought maybe it was a bug in Big Sur 11.4 but I eventually found the solution. There is a command to hide the icons on the desktop: ```bash defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop FALSE; killall Finder ``` I don't remember running it, but by setting `CreateDesktop` to `TRUE` and restarting Finder, all my icons showed back up! ```bash defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop TRUE; killall Finder ``` To make this easier in the future, I added a function to my shell: ```bash # Pass TRUE or FALSE - toggles desktop icons on and off. function toggle_desktop_icons() { if [ -z "$1" ] then echo "You must pass 'TRUE' or 'FALSE' to this function!" echo "Try 'toggle_desktop_icons true' or 'toggle_desktop_icons false'" echo "" echo "Aborting!" return 0 fi defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop $1; killall Finder } ``` ## References - [The Easiest Way To Hide Desktop Icons On Mac – Setapp](https://setapp.com/how-to/hide-icons-on-mac)