How To: Restore desktop icons in Ubuntu when Nautilus crashes

Posted on 14. Feb, 2010 by Dragos in Apps, Operating Systems, Ubuntu

For some reasons, it happens that all my desktop icons disappear. My previous solution was to logout and login again to my account, but with some thinking I have figured out that Nautilus is responsive for my desktop layout (Gnome also, but files and folders are taken from Nautilus). So when Nautilus crashes, or fails to work, the best solution is to start it again.

So to restore all your desktop icons you should hit Alt+F2 which will open a “run application” window. Type nautilus to start nautilus and restore your desktop layout: