How to hide desktop icons on a Mac

1. Hide all desktop icons (macOS Sonoma and later)

macOS Sonoma (14) added a switch for this, and later versions keep it.

1. Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
2. Click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar.
3. Under Desktop & Stage Manager, find Show Items and clear On Desktop.

Every icon disappears from the desktop. Tick On Desktop again to bring them back. While they're hidden, open Finder and click Desktop in the sidebar to reach your files.

The catch: it's all or nothing. While the icons are hidden you can't see or open anything from the desktop itself, so many people end up switching it on and off all day.

2. Hide only drives and servers

If it's the disk and USB drive icons that bother you, Finder can hide just those.

1. Click an empty spot on the desktop so Finder is the active app.
2. Choose Finder › Settings (on macOS 12 it's called Preferences).
3. On the General tab, under Show these items on the desktop, clear Hard disks, External disks, CDs, DVDs, and iPods and Connected servers.

Your drives still show up in the Finder sidebar, so nothing becomes harder to reach.

3. Pile everything into Stacks

Stacks don't hide your files, but they pile them up by type, so a desktop with sixty icons turns into a few tidy piles.

1. Click an empty spot on the desktop.
2. Choose View › Use Stacks, or Control-click the desktop and choose Use Stacks.
3. To group them differently, choose View › Group Stacks By and pick an option such as Kind or Date Added.

Click a stack to fan it open and click it again to close it. Stacks are on every Mac since macOS Mojave (10.14).

Good for keeping order, but the piles are still on screen, and a busy month makes them grow.

4. Hide desktop icons with Terminal (any macOS)

macOS 12 and 13 don't have the Sonoma switch, but a Terminal command hides every desktop icon on them too.

1. Open Terminal from Applications › Utilities, or search for it with Spotlight (Command-Space).
2. Paste defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false; killall Finder and press Return.

Finder restarts and the desktop is empty. To bring the icons back, run defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true; killall Finder.

This switches off Finder's whole desktop, so you can't drop files onto it until you switch it back on.

5. Sweep them under a rug

The built-in options treat hiding as on or off. Desktop Carpet takes a different approach: it lays a real-looking rug over your Mac's wallpaper, and your desktop icons go underneath it.

• Lift a corner with the mouse or trackpad to get to your files, and let go to drop the rug back over them.
• Nothing moves on disk. Your files stay in your Desktop folder; the rug only covers them on screen.
• 321 rugs from around the world, from Persian medallions to Japanese waves and Amalfi lemons, with new packs all the time.

It runs on macOS 12 or later, on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs, and on Windows 10 and 11. One key works on your Mac and your PC. It's free: no card, no account and nothing that runs out.

Questions

Does hiding desktop icons on a Mac delete them?

No. Every method above only changes what you see. The files stay in your Desktop folder, and you can open them from Finder at any time.

Where are my desktop files while the icons are hidden?

In the Desktop folder. Open Finder and click Desktop in the sidebar, or press Shift-Command-D in Finder.

Why did all my desktop icons disappear on my Mac?

Open System Settings › Desktop & Dock and check that On Desktop is ticked next to Show Items (and In Stage Manager, if you use Stage Manager). If someone ran the Terminal command, run it again with true (method 4).

Is there a Fences app for Mac?

Fences is a Windows app. On a Mac, Stacks is the closest built-in option, and Desktop Carpet runs on both Mac and Windows. See how Desktop Carpet compares with Fences, or how to hide desktop icons on Windows.