How to save desktop icon layout on Windows 10

Desktop icons rearrange often on Windows 10 and no one likes it. This tends to happen at random but if you have a multi-monitor set-up you likely experience it most often than users with a single screen. There are apps that, if you keep them running, can prevent the icons from rearranging but they may drag your system down. Another alternative is to save the desktop icon layout which you can do with ReIcon.

Save desktop icon layout

Download ReIcon and then arrange the icons on your screen the way you want them. Once you’ve done that, run the app and click the save icon. A new ‘profile’ will be created in the app and that is basically the saved icon layout. You can close the app and wait for Windows 10 to mess up the layout.

A layout has a name, a time and date stamp, an icon count i.e., how many icons were on the desktop when the layout was backed up, and an ID. To rename a layout, click inside the Name field and it will become editable. Enter whatever name you want to give it, and tap Enter to save the name.

To restore it, run the app and select the profile. Go to Edit>Restore Icon Layout and your layout will be restored instantly. You can create and save as many icon layouts as you want, and restore whichever one suits you the best. The app works pretty well with a multi-monitor setup.

There are some exceptions though. If you’ve, for example, deleted an item from your desktop, the app won’t be able to restore it. It may impact the arrangement of the icons if you’ve set them to snap to the grid automatically. If you know you’ve removed an item from the desktop that was present when you saved an icon layout, you should turn snap to grid off and then restore the icon layout.

ReIcon doesn’t need to be installed so make sure you don’t leave the app somewhere you might accidentally delete it because it saves the profile in the same folder that it runs from. Move it to a safe location before you use it to save and restore icon layouts.

The app only works for the desktop icon layout and not for the files in folders. The files in folders don’t have a ‘layout’. They’re arranged by various sorting criteria so the app doesn’t work there.

You can also back up the Start Menu layout if you want.

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Fatima Wahab

Fatima has been writing for AddictiveTips for six years. She began as a junior writer and has been working as the Editor in Chief since 2014. Fatima gets an adrenaline rush from figuring out how technology works, and how to manipulate it. A well-designed app, something that solves a common everyday problem and looks

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