Desktop Items appear to be Gone

I was adding a disk for backup (Seagate FreeAgent Go 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive), and now have two problems:
1) The only items that appear on the desktop are the disk icons, but if I go to the desktop folder they are all there??
2) The computer has slowed down to a crawl.
Any ideas??

Congrats first off. I find it interesting that every time I had a problem it must be my 3rd rate, 3rd party Ram according to whatever tech I got on the line not Apple's superior Ram.

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Two Desktop items appear in file/open close dialog boxes.

In all applications in the file open/save dialog box I have two "Desktop" items on the left toolbar. In Finder it is showing up the right way with only one "Desktop" item on the left tool bar. How do I get rid of this extra "Desktop" item on my open/save dialog boxes?
Thanks.

1. Drag all Desktop icons off your Finder sidebar.
2. In Finder >> Preferences >> Sidebar UNcheck all options.
3. navigate to ~(yourhome)/library/preferences and trash these two files:
com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
Then log out and back in again. Or restart.
(You will have to reset a few finder prefs the way you like them.)

When I login, all of my desktop items are gone, the "Finder" icon is bouncing and a message asking to restore windows is blinking but unresponsive. I can't exit out of it. What do I do? I've tried force quitting, and it doesn't get rid of it.

When I login, all of my desktop items are gone, the "Finder" icon is bouncing and a message asking to restore windows is blinking but unresponsive. I can't exit out of it. What do I do? I've tried force quitting, and it doesn't get rid of this message. When I login to my husband's account, this message does not appear.

Hey sunnyday7!
Here is an article that can help you address this issue:
OS X: How to quit an unresponsive application using Force Quit
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3411
Additional Information
OS X automatically relaunches the Finder when it is quit. If the Finder is unresponsive, use Force Quit to relaunch it. Select Finder in the Force Quit Window or Dock, then click Relaunch.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!
-Braden

In System Prefereneces, when I am in Desktop and Screen Saver, I am unable to remove folders. I can click the "-" and the folder appears to be gone, but when I close and then reopen System Preferences, and open Desktop and Screen Saver, the folder reappea

In System Prefereneces, when I am in Desktop and Screen Saver, I am unable to remove folders. I can click the "-" and the folder appears to be gone, but when I close and then reopen System Preferences, and open Desktop and Screen Saver, the folder reappears in the list. I have tried deleting preferences "plist" but I am totally unable to remove the folders.

I've seen one other report like yours, and I think the issue is caused by a bug, but I don't know what triggers it.
Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, or by corruption of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain iMacs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Desktop items gone...or hidden..?

After some attempts to run DiskWarrior from one HD to another I was asked for privileges and I must have done something wrong.
My desktops items are not there (don't appear on desktop) and I can't find them anywhere on my HDs.
But... tried to copy 2 older items which used to be on desktop from an external HD. It told me, those items are already there - on desktop (can't see them).
Is there a trick to make them visible..?
All those privileges...
Thanks
bafomet

A quick check can be done from the terminal. Open up the terminal (/Applications/Utility/Terminal) and the type in the following (you can copy and paste if you'd like):
ls -a ~/Desktop
That will show you all the files, hidden and non-hidden, on your Desktop. HTH.
-NifflerX

Desktop items only appearing in finder

I recently upgraded the hardrive on a Macbook 2008. All was fine after inital boot up. I was attempting to recover lost files and somehow all of the desktop items disappeared. They are only appearing in Finder and I can't drag them to the des

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Calendar items appear truncated or shrunken on desktop after sync

When I sync my Palm V to my Macbook Leopard 10.5.5 the item appears in the time slot but I have to manually expand each entry. How can I set the preference to show each calendar event
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Lost all my desktop items when transfered it to a folder in Mahintos HD, Plz Help

There were photographs and videos of my new born baby on desktop, I did drag and drop to move all the desktop items to a folder in Machintos HD, Then I shut down the machine, after some time when I restarted that folder is not reflecting my files and all files from my desktop are gone and i can't find files even in finder but HD volume is same as b4, so I am sure the file is not deleted, its not even there in Trash, I use imac27 osx 10.9.5, It would be very kind act of yours if you can help me retrieve my new born baby's photographs and videos, very precious to me

Restore from your Time Machine backup, assuming these photos are precious to you then you should have been backing up the computer. If you have not then the files may still be on the machine, you just need t search for them. Use a search tool such as Find Any File to help locate them.

What should I do about an odd icon on the desktop that appeared when I restored my iPhone?

I have an odd icon on the desktop that appeared when I restored the software in my iPhone, and I do not know what to do about the strange file. The scenario is as follows:
Recently I was having some problems with the proximity sensor on the iPhone, and I read that if one restored the software on the iPhone, this often allowed the sensor to be calibrated and it would work properly. Thus I synchronized (backed up) the iPhone and then wiped it out and reinstalled the software. At the point iTunes asked me did I want to restore the phone from a backup, I decided that since I did not to re-import any corrupted stuff from the old installation that might affect the operation of the proximity sensor, then I would start over and just set it up as a new phone. I was able to get what little I wanted of stuff otherwise from the iCloud and my music from iTunes, so everything seems to have gone fine.
However, now I have a file that has an image of a Lego-block with musical notes and an iPod on its sides that appeared on the desktop. The odd file is called "iPhone3,1_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw". What on earth is this all about???? When I search the internet, I see people who have jailbroken their iPhones talking about .ipsw files, but to the best of my knowledge, I have not done anything to jailbreak my iPhone, nor would I ever want to do such. Why did this file appear on my desktop? What is this file for for? Can I delete this file?
Thank you.

I forgot to mention also that when I tried to delete this icon, the trash eternally acted like it was emptyint the trash, but the progress bar was not progressing. I suppose that is because the file size is too large (812 MB).

Skype setup UI issues with enlarged desktop item s...

The issue is with the latest automatic update.
With enlarged size of desktop items and fonts (Control Panel->Appearance and Personalization->Display->Change the size of all items) the text in the setup window overlaps with some setup options, effectively making them impossible to see and click. I'm using Windows 8.1 (Russian). Screenshot attached.
Setting desktop item size back to 100% fixes the window.
Attachments:
skype_setup2.png ‏135 KB

That's been a known issue for quite some time they have yet to address. Higher than normal DPI settings will cause that issue. The only solution is to set your DPI settings to normal temporarily or disable DPI scaling for the executable.

IMac monitor - desktop items disappear/reappear - applications pause

For about a week now, every 2 minutes all of my desktop icons will disappear and then reappear. If I have a folder open, such as the Pictures folder, it will close during this process.
If I am using Firefox or Safari or Photoshop, when the desktop items disappear, so does my mouse's ability to function on the application. I have to click on the application again for the mouse to function on it.
Today I was attempting to burn files to a DVD, but it fails because of this "refreshing" or whatever you call this symptom. Last night my computer did appear to do its weekly backup, (it said it was successful) but I wanted to copy files onto a DVD just in case.
Can someone give me some direction on how to troubleshoot this? In beginner terms? I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.
P.S. The only new things that happened recently that I can think of was that I did a software upgrade (think it was Quicktime...) and downloaded a Wordpress Theme.

Sometimes, starting up in SafeBoot (shift key held after start tone, login window appears
and semi-normal desktop Finder appears; but this is in a reduced function mode) and a
'repair disk permissions' in Disk Utility of the computer's volume on the Mac HD may help.
And after that, or any other minor repairs done in SafeBoot, the computer gets a normal
restart so the rest of the OS will be up and running. If that does not help, there are other
things one may try and do to help it. The matter involves some troubleshooting and a
cause and effect approach is sometimes taken; or on other occasions, a user may try a
long laundry-list of things and hope some issue just goes away; if one or another thing
happens to work. In this instance, learning of a specific issue's cure may not result.
Some items causing a problem, such as those cited above, may be dealt with while
the computer is started up in SafeBoot mode; since extensions and other parts of
such things may be turned off. So, some items like Stuffit can be removed when
they are disabled in SafeBoot. Be sure to run 'repair disk permissions' before and
after software updates, since for some reason this appears to help the system.
Sometimes, just basic system maintenance such as repair disk permissions, running
time/date cron-like routines (see AppleJack download, or OnyX in automation) can
resolve issues that may otherwise involve knowing more about how the system works.
These kinds of tools, free to download and try, can save a bit of trouble; some of that
is preventive in that the routines can be done per schedule to keep the system well.
The bootable installer system disc can be helpful, since there are optional tools in the
Disk Utility on that disc's boot volume; ahead of actually running the Installer itself. A
menu bar appears in the first full Installer window with drop down menus in it, and of
these a few options appear. And in the Disk Utility, chosen from the Installer menu,
there are a variety of tools which can totally obliterate or attempt a repair to the HDD.
An 'archive & install' and then update the resulting new system to the latest version
of OS X including security update, java, quicktime, safari, and other parts would follow;
in some cases, perhaps extreme, this is one way to resolve system software issue.
There are others, but this is among the last but not least. Further study is recommended
before going the A&I plus update the new system folder route; depending on what else
is going on in the system as it exists now. If this archive & install is performed, be sure
the checkbox to save user account info is marked, so the new system will retain this...
In any event...
Good Luck & happy computing!

How do I stop desktop icons appearing from the right?

I'm new to Mac (and loving it!) but when new items (drives, downloads, etc) are added to my desktop that appear on the right hand side (unlike Windows which adds from the left).
Now I like to keep the Twitter app open on the right hand side of the screen so I'm constantly moving it to grab the icons from behind.
Is there a way to tell my Mac to add icons to the left hand side of the screen instead?
Cheers!
Simon

A different way round your problem would be to assign Twitter to just one desktop.
Then when you want to access the icons behind it, just four-finger swipe or use the keyboard hotkey to switch to the next desktop (which will show the icons without your Twitter app in front).

Time Machine Only Displays Desktop Items

I'm using a 2GHz Intel Core Duo iMac, using Time Machine to backup to a 400GB Iomega external drive.
The problem is when I go in to Time Machine to 'look back in time', the only items which appear in the historical finder windows are those items or folders actually located on my desktop, but excluding "Macintosh HD". This means, for example, if I want to restore an old file from my "Documents" folder of 1 week ago, I can not, as this can not be accessed via the desktop (bearing in mind the Macintosh HD icon also does not appear).
Any ideas? Time Machine preferences do not account for this problem - I have not restricted backup to desktop items only.

You should post your question in the "Time Machine" discussion area.
This is the "Time Capsule" discussion area.

Time Machine Shows Desktop Items Only....?

I'm using a 2GHz Intel Core Duo iMac, using Time Machine to backup to a 400GB Iomega external drive.
The problem is when I go in to Time Machine to 'look back in time', the only items which appear in the historical finder windows are those items or folders actually located on my desktop, but excluding "Macintosh HD". This means, for example, if I want to restore an old file from my "Documents" folder of 1 week ago, I can not, as this can not be accessed via the desktop (bearing in mind the Macintosh HD icon also does not appear).
Any ideas? Time Machine preferences do not account for this problem - I have not restricted backup to desktop items only.

Time Machine displays whatever is selected in the left sidebar window. Try clicking on your hard drive, documents, pictures, etc. in the sidebar window one at a time and you will see the Time Machine display change to reflect their respective contents.

Xfce desktop items rearrange themselves between reboots

Hello, I am a new Arch Linux user and this is my first thread. Please pardon any possible mistakes I made on this post.
Almost every time Xfce starts the desktop icons are rearranged. After searching the wiki, I found this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xf … themselves
So after deleting the said files, I restarted Xfce. The problem was not gone.
Then I noticed that it was more complicated: I think it's not the desktop item positions that are changing, but the desktop's margins.
Not all icons are rearranged; only those on the right and the bottom sides of the desktop, the last collumns and rows.
In /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/icons.screen0-1350x728.rc these files' positions change back to row=0 col=0 and cannot be placed back to their original location.
The next time I restart Xfce the inaccesible spaces on the desktop are ok once again, and I place the items there. Then the problem repeats itself.
Is there any configuration file I should have manually edited?
I'm using Xfce, xfwm with compositing enabled, and no conky or any other desktop decorations.
inxi -G output:
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF106 [GeForce GTS 450]
Display Server: X.Org 1.15.1 driver: nvidia
Resolution: [email protected]
GLX Renderer: GeForce GTS 450/PCIe/SSE2
GLX Version: 4.2.0 NVIDIA 304.121
EDIT: This might be actually caused by removing USB flash drives while the computer is shut down. The mentioned file is not changed, ergo a mess is caused when it's read on startup. I can't confirm this, though.
EDIT #2: No, it happened again, and I had not removed any usb flash drives.
Last edited by Sudowoodo (2014-05-18 07:45:37)

Go to ~/Library/Preferences. Move the com.apple.desktop.plist file to the Trash.
Restart your Mac.
~ (Tilde) represents your Home folder.

Desktop Items appear to be Gone

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