How to Remove Shortcuts from Desktop on Windows PC

When you have too many apps installed on your computer, your desktop is probably cluttered with shortcuts. These are shortcut icons that do not contain any data of their own but allow you to swiftly navigate to other programs or files.

Many users may want a tidy screen so they are likely to remove shortcuts from desktops to keep them organized. If you also wish to remove some useless shortcuts, then this post will help you. And to avoid you delete important files, we’ll also show you how to recover deleted files from your PC.

2 ways how to remove shortcuts from desktop

Note: If you are unable to remove a desktop shortcut, it is possible that the program was built with administrator credentials. As an administrator, you must erase desktop icons.

Way 1. Delete shortcut from desktop directly

Step 1. On your desktop, right-click on your selected shortcut icon.

Step 2. To delete shortcuts, choose "Delete" from the drop-down menu. You may also just drag the icon to the Recycle Bin.

Way 2. Remove shortcut from desktop in Settings

You can also set shortcuts in Settings under Personalization.

Step 1. Press “Win + I” to open Windows Settings and click the “Personalization” button.

Step 2. Select the “Themes” option in the left menu.

Step 3. Click “Desktop icon settings” and find your Recycle Bin icon.

Step 4. In this case, untick the "Recycle Bin" icon, and click “Apply”. Remember to click “OK” to close the window.

On the other hand, if the Computer and Recycle Bin icons have vanished from your desktop, you may restore them by checking the respective boxes.

How to recover deleted shortcuts and files from desktop

If you regret deleting some shortcuts because you can’t quickly access frequently used applications/folders, or you find that there are some important files or shortcuts that are removed by mistake, you can check your Recycle Bin to restore them.

However, if your desired files are not found in the Recycle Bin, don't panic; you may try to restore these files using expert data recovery software.

We propose AOMEI FastRecovery, a disk and partition management solution for Windows users to monitor their computers easily. Its "Recover Data" feature can recover more than 200 different types of data. Whether deleted or lost Word documents, Excel, photographs, videos, PPT, or PDF, they will be restored from HDD, USB, and other storage devices once scanned.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI FastRecovery. Choose the exact partition or disk where your data lost and click Scan.

Step 2. Then, the recovery tool start to scan and search. lt will execute the “Quickly Scan" first for finding your deleted data fast, and then execute the “Deep Scan" for searching other lost data.

Step 3. Once the scan is completed, all deleted files, recycle bins and other missing files will be displayed. Please select the file you would like to recover and then click "Recover".

Step 4. Then, select a folder path to save your recovered files.

Step 5. Wait patiently for this process of recovering ends.

Final lines

The preceding two sections explain how to remove shortcuts from the desktop and how to restore lost shortcuts and files. Hope this post may assist you in resolving the issue. Some users may meet files missing or folders can’t access after Windows update, AOMEI FastRecovey can also give you a hand.