If you’re like most people, you probably have icons on your desktop that represent different programs and folders. If you’re a Mac user, it’s likely that you also have icons for the Finder and the System Preferences. If you want to hide these icons on your Mac, there are a few ways to do it. You can use an application like Alfred or iWorker to hide the icons, or you can use a command line utility like Terminal to hide them. Here’s how to hide all desktop icons on Mac:
- Open Terminal and type “icontrol -h” to show the help screen. This will show you all of the available commands for controlling icon visibility on your Mac.
- Type “icontrol -l” to list all of the desktop icons in your Finder. This will show you which ones are visible and which ones are not. You can drag and drop any of these icons into an empty space on your desktop so that they become hidden.
A cleaner desktop is only a terminal command away. While you can use Stacks to automatically organize the desktop, nothing beats a clean slate.
RELATED: How to Organize Your Desktop With Stacks on macOS Mojave
To get started, open the Terminal app on your Mac using Spotlight Search or Launchpad.
Terminal is the built-in command-line application on Mac. But don’t let that overwhelm you. In this guide, we will be using Terminal to run a specific command in a safe manner. It will not affect your work or the macOS system.
After opening the Terminal app, type or paste in the following command, and then press the Return (or Enter) key.
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false
Next, you’ll need to restart the Finder application. Type in the following command and press the Return (or Enter) key.
killall Finder
All Finder windows will restart, and just like that, your Mac desktop will be blank. All icons are now hidden.
Click the red Close button in the top-left corner of the Terminal app to safely exit the application.
You can now carry on with your presentation or screenshots.
You can reverse this change using another Terminal command. If you want the desktop icons back, return to the Terminal app, type or paste the following command, and then press Return (or Enter).
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop true
Type the following command and then press the Return (Enter) key to restart Finder.
killall Finder
The desktop icons will spring back to life!
Once again, use the red Close button in the top-left corner of the Terminal window to safely exit the application. You can now go back to your merry work life!
If you aren’t comfortable using the Terminal app every time you want to hide or show desktop icons, try using the free HiddenMe menu bar application.
It’s a small, single-purpose utility that sits in the menu bar and lets you hide desktop icons with just a click.
While it’s great that macOS offers a quick way to hide all desktop icons, there will be times when you’ll still want to use them. Desktop icons and shortcuts can help you be more productive. But a messy desktop isn’t going to cut it. Take some time to organize your desktop icons. You’ll thank us later!
RELATED: How to Organize Your Mac’s Desktop Icons
