I accidentally used xkill on my desktop - how can I get it back?

Question

I ran xkill to force quit Chrome, and I clicked my desktop. The icons disappeared.

Is there a command that will get them back? I'd rather not restart.

I'm using GNOME and GDM.

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 05 '15 at 20:55

The desktop icons are managed by file browser, on regular running try

$ ps ax | grep nautilus
 2464 ?        Sl     0:11 nautilus -n
 6390 pts/2    S+     0:00 grep --color=auto nautilus

From man nautilus

   -n
   --no-default-window
          Only create windows for explicitly specified URIs.

In this mode nautilus will not show a window, and it run like a daemon. So for you case use:

nautilus -n & disown

Tim · Answer 2 · 2024-07-23T20:25:17.610

9

It turns out this can be fixed with Gnome Tweak Tool.

Using xkill on the desktop sometimes turns off the "Icons on Desktop" setting:

Turning this back on fixed it:

If the setting is not turned off, then just turning it off and on again brings them back.

edited Jul 23 '24 at 20:25

answered Dec 05 '15 at 19:38

Tim

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 21 '18 at 16:10

2

All you have to do is open Nautilus and all will be back.

edited Nov 21 '18 at 16:10

Tim

answered Dec 05 '15 at 20:54

Doug

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 21 '18 at 16:09

0

The previous answers did not work for me, but this command does for Kubuntu 18.04

kstart plasmashell

I hope this could helps others!

answered Nov 21 '18 at 16:09

Jason Angel

4 Answers4