All PC users have their own style of arranging icons on the desktop. While some users prefer letting Windows automatically arrange desktop icons, most users want to arrange desktop icons in their own way.
As you might have observed by now, Windows 10/11 automatically changes desktop icon positions when you change the screen resolution. Desktop icons might change their positions while playing a game or after disconnecting from an external display.
If you have arranged desktop icons in a particular way, you might want to save those desktop icon positions.
While there is no built-in option to save and restore desktop icon positions, third-party utilities can help you preserve and restore desktop icon positions in Windows 10/11. The best thing about third-party utilities is that they can save multiple layouts.
Following are the two free utilities out there to help you save and restore desktop icon positions in Windows 10/11 and earlier versions.
DesktopOK
DesktopOK is our favorite software when it comes to saving desktop icon positions. It can save multiple layouts and can also automatically save desktop icon layouts. You can configure it to automatically save the desktop icon layout every 15 minutes, every hour, every 6 hours, or every day.
If you want, there is an option to export/import desktop icon layouts as well. Options to automatically save the icon layout each time you shut down your PC and load it every time you start your PC are present as well.
It also offers options to save icon size and spacing between icons.
Restore Desktop Icon Layouts
Restore Desktop Icon Layouts is another excellent piece of software that enables you to save and restore desktop icon positions on a Windows 10 PC.
Like DesktopOK, it allows you to save multiple icon layouts. The program displays the time, total number of icons on the screen, and the resolution of the screen at the time of saving the layout.
The best thing about Restore Desktop Icon Layouts is that you don’t need to open the program to save or restore the icon layout. You can make it to work right from the desktop context menu.
Please note that the program doesn’t add the option to the desktop context menu with default settings. To add the option, launch Restore Desktop Icon Layout, click Options, click Add context menu, and then click Desktop. If you don’t want to clutter the desktop context menu, you can add the same to This PC as well.
Once added, simply right-click on an empty spot on the desktop, click Desktop Icon Layout, and then click the Save/Restore option.
Download Restore Desktop Icon Layouts
In addition to these tools, there are a few more utilities around for the same job. But they are either incompatible with Windows 10/11 or fail to work as promised.
Sodumb says
These two utilities are the same, just rebranded with minor differences. Neither are reliable especially if you regular transition from a desktop monitor to a laptop. In that case, they just don’t work.
For instance, you can have 100 desktop icons with your 32+ inch monitor. But you need to create a profile or layout reducing the number of icons to say a dozen so there won’t be any overlapping and conflict when you transition to your laptop monitor/screen. Neither of these utilities will do that for you.
Randall Skelton says
I installed the DesktopOK app and a couple weeks later I needed to use the restore. The icons were instantly bizarrely distributed all over the place with huge spaces between them!. I managed to recover although it was scary, I don’t know how it recovered. Since I couldn’t justify how it had recovered, I immediately removed everything associated with the DesktopOK program after uninstalling it. I am still not feeling well about how these things can happen even with ai helping me find these much-needed apps. Never again! Do not rely on ai to give you free app downloads. Ai does not have a desktop and probably doesn’t care what happens to you. It can’t be protective and warn you that bad things can happen if you use an app it recommends.
Neil Murphy says
So far nothing has worked for me.