Why does desktop icons keep moving

It will save the layout. When MS moves them again, click the Icon Shepherd icon and click restore. It should give you a date. If you want to change the layout or add more desktop icons, again click the icon shepherd icon and click 'save as' and enter the date that you're doing this.

Next time, it will give you the options of what date you want to save the icons. Can't go wrong. I've used it for years and it's a mind saver. Choose where you want to search below Search Search the Community. Search the community and support articles Windows Windows 10 Search Community member.

So this has been an ongoing problem for me for months at this point. Every time I restart or shut down my computer my desktop icons rearrange in a way that I did not set. I have gone through many of the common fixes and have had success temporarily fixing it through some unknown combinations of various processes. But every time I download a new game for steam or really add any sort of new icon to my desktop it breaks again. So if anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this that would be greatly appreciated.

This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. I have the same question If you are facing the issue that Windows 10 desktop icons moving by themselves or rearranging after rebooting, then you are at the right place because this post will tell you how to resolve this issue. You can read this post written by MiniTool to get the methods. Do you know what the two blue icons on icons are? Do you know how to remove the two blue arrows on icons?

You can get the answers from this post. Here are the steps:. Not to run that program :- or look through its settings, maybe there is an option to adjust the screen resolution it uses. Contact the company that makes the offending program, and they might be able to help. If only some icons are moving after you save changes to the documents they represent, it could be because the program that saves the changes actually recreates a new document from scratch, and it makes Windows to find a new position for the icon rather than reuse the old one.

As suggested in the comments below, a solution to such a problem is not to save documents themselves on the desktop. Instead, save them to some other folder, such as Documents, and create shortcuts to the documents on the Desktop. This way, when you save the document, the shortcut will not be changed, and it should keep its position on the desktop. If Windows keeps rearranging the icons even after you've tried the previous suggestions, another possibility is that you have a faulty video card or an outdated driver for the video card.

You see, if the video card or its driver do not behave well, they may change the resolution spontaneously, and when the resolution changes, it causes Windows to rearrange the icons on the desktop, too. If this is the case, first of all check for updates to your video card driver, and install a new version, if available. Keep in mind that you may need to search the web site of the company that manufactured your video card for the latest driver for your specific model.

If updating the driver does not solve the problem, try tweaking the video card settings, such as changing its resolution or the display mode. Good luck! Finally, if Windows keeps rearranging the desktop icons no matter what you try, you may want to install our software Icon Shepherd. It memorizes the positions of the desktop icons and keeps track of them when you move the icons around, creating snapshots of the icons after each change.

When Windows messes up your icons, you can use the Icon Shepherd icon next to the system clock to restore a previously saved layout of the icons, and return them to their proper places. After that click and empty space on your desktop, right click and refresh 3 x. To test this solution, I opened a image bank website and tried to save any image.

Save as… in my desktop just to test and ok! None of the icons changed their place, like before. The image was saved a available space. No iconed moved this time. Ok I usually download files on desktop and then move to specific folders in C drive. Make sure Align icons to grid is unchecked as well.

Reboot and see if the issue is resolved. Some programs such as computer games in particular change the screen resolution when you run them. When it happens, Windows automatically re-arranges the desktop icons to fit the new screen size. When you exit the game, the screen resolution may change back, but the icons have already been re-arranged. On Macs, you can sort icons by tag, which keeps them locked in place.