Do you want to make your desktop icons invisible? In this post, we will be showing you the exact steps on how you can turn your desktop icons to look invisible without hiding, disabling, or deleting them.

How to make Desktop Icons invisible in Windows 11

To make your desktop icons invisible on your Windows 11/10 PC, here are the two steps you need to follow:

1. Make the name of the desktop icon invisible using the Character Map.
2. Make the desktop icon invisible by changing the icon settings.

Make the name of the desktop icon invisible using the Character Map

The very first step to make a desktop icon transparent or invisible is to make its name visible. Suppose, I want to make the desktop icon of the Recycle Bin visible, I will first make its name invisible. Now, we won’t be deleting the name itself or adding a space in place of its name. We will be using a special Unicode character. let us check out how:

First, press Win+S to open Windows Search and then enter “character” in the search box. From the appeared search results, click on the Character Map app to open it.

Now, in the Character Map window, tick the Advanced view checkbox.

Next, enter 00A0 in the Go to Unicode box. A special Unicode character known as No-Break Space in the first character box will be shown.

After that, press the Select button and then click on the Copy to copy the highlighted No-Break Space character.

Now, move to your desktop and right-click on the desktop icon you want to make invisible. In our case, it is Recycle Bin. And, from the context menu, click on the Rename option. Or, press the F2 key. Then, press CTRL+V to paste the earlier copied character and hit Enter.

This will make the name of the target desktop icon go blank.

Read: How to create blank folder names in Windows?

Make the desktop icon invisible by changing the icon settings

The second step is to make the icon invisible or unseen. To do that, press Win+I to open the Settings app and go to the Personalization tab.

Then, select the Themes option and click on the Desktop icon settings option.

Now, click on the Recycle Bin (full) icon and then press the Change Icon button.

After that, in the Change Icon window, scroll to the right side to locate a blank icon image and click on it. Press the OK button.

Next, go back to the Desktop Icon Settings window and choose the Recycle Bin (empty) icon. Then, press the Change Icon button, select a blank icon, and press the OK button.

Next, click on the Apply > OK button in the Desktop Icon Settings window to save changes.

This will make the desktop icon of Recycle Bin go invisible as you can see in the above screenshot.

Similarly, you can make the desktop icon of File Explorer and other desktop items invisible.

If you want to make icons of desktop shortcuts of installed applications go invisible, perform step 1 as discussed above and then right-click on the icon. After that, choose the Properties option from the context menu and go to the Shortcut tab. From here, click on the Change Icon button and choose a blank icon from the list. Once done, press the OK button to save changes.

See: How to show or hide common system icons on Windows desktop?

I hope this helps!

How do I make Windows icons invisible?

To create a folder without any icon or name, you can right-click on the target folder and select the Properties option. After that, move to the Customize tab and click on the Change Icon button. Now, choose a blank icon from the available icons and press the OK button. The fold icon will become unseen or invisible now. Similarly, you can make the icon of a program file invisible.

Read: How to color your Windows folders.

How do I hide icons on my desktop Windows 11?

To hide your desktop icons on your Windows 11 PC, right-click on the empty area on your desktop. From the appeared context menu, go to the View option and untick the Show desktop icons option. You can do the same using Group Policy Editor. For that, open the open the Group Policy Editor and go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Desktop. After that, double-click on the Hide and disable all items on the desktop policy, and set it to Enabled.

Now read: Fix Desktop icons not showing in Windows.