If you’re a Windows 10 user, you’ve probably noticed that some of your favourite icons are missing from the taskbar at some point. If your favourite icons are no longer visible in your taskbar, you may become irritated. However, you are unaware that solving this little issue is as simple as drinking a glass of water. You may quickly personalise your taskbar by following the procedures below, which are well explained.
Fix Icons Missing in Windows 10:
1. Show Hidden Icons in the System Tray with Windows 10 Settings:
Remove the arrow and expanding pane, and enable the Always display all icons in the notification area setting if you would like to view all of your icons in the system tray all of the time.
- To do so, right-click your taskbar and pick Taskbar Settings from the menu that appears.
- Then, under the Notifications section, select the option to Select which icons display on the taskbar.
- At the top of the list, toggle the Always show all icons in the notification area setting.
- Note that icons in the system tray only appear when the programmes they represent are open.
2. Turn System Icons On or Off:
If you still don’t see icons in your task bar, try turning them on or off using the Turn system icons on or off setting.
- Right-click the Taskbar and select Taskbar Settings.
- Go to the Notification section of the Taskbar Settings and choose Turn system icons on or off.
- Toggle the sliders for the system icons you wish to see in the system tray to On (if they’re currently Off).
- To make the modifications take effect, restart your computer.
3. Show Hidden Icons in the System Tray with a Mouse
Select the arrow adjacent to the Notification area with your mouse to open the system tray and show the hidden icons. You may also use your cursor to drag and drop the icons onto the taskbar.
4. Start Windows Explorer again.
Restart Windows Explorer to refresh it and restore your computer’s missing system tray or icons.
- To do so, right-click the taskbar and pick Task Manager from the drop-down menu.
- Under the Processes tab, right-click explorer.exe and select End Task.
- After that, go to the App History page and choose File > Run New Task.
- In the message box that displays, type explorer.exe and click OK.
- The icons in the system tray will appear once Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) reloads. Return to the Taskbar settings, choose Turn system icons on or off, then tick the box next to the absent icon if you don’t see it.
5. IconCache can be reset or deleted.
The icons you see on programmes and files are stored in the icon cache database so that the operating system may show them on your screen. By avoiding the need to search up symbols every time, you can keep your system from slowing down.
However, when the icon cache database increases, corruption can occur, causing icons to fail to render properly, seem damaged, or disappear from the system tray.
To fix the problem, try resetting or deleting the IconCache.
How to Reset the Windows 10 IconCache Database:
Close any active apps before going to the command prompt to reset the icon cache database. Select the Run as administrator option after typing CMD in the search field.
- In the command prompt window, type in the following path and hit Enter:
- Then, hit Enter and enter dir iconcache* (a list of database files will appear).
- By running taskkill /f /im explorer.exe and pressing Enter, you may close File Explorer. After you close File Explorer, you’ll see that your taskbar and desktop backdrop vanish, however this is just temporary. The icon cache files can be deleted by closing File Explorer.
- Then, hit Enter and enter del iconcache*.
- To ensure that the icon cache files have been destroyed, type dir iconcache* and hit Enter. Type explorer.exe and click Enter to launch File Explorer.
